


Stirring Dull Roots With Spring Rain

by BlossomsintheMist



Series: Mixing Memory and Desire [2]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Romance, Bisexual Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Bisexual Jaskier | Dandelion, Blow Jobs, Come Eating, Come Swallowing, Comeplay, Competent Jaskier | Dandelion, Delirium, Dom/sub Undertones, Eating, Embarrassment, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotionally Constipated Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Explicit Sexual Content, Fever, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Food, Friends to Lovers, Gentleness, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Being an Idiot, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Has Feelings, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Has a Big Dick, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Whump, Get Together, Hair Braiding, Hand Jobs, Hints of subspace, Hurt Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses, Injury Recovery, Insecure Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Insecure Jaskier | Dandelion, Jaskier | Dandelion Has Feelings, M/M, Major Character Injury, Mutual Pining, POV Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Pining, Pining Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Pining Jaskier | Dandelion, Protective Jaskier | Dandelion, Resolved Sexual Tension, Scent Kink, Serious Injuries, Sexual Content, Sexual Tension, Sharing a Bed, Sick Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Soft Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Soft Jaskier | Dandelion, Sub Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Touch-Starved Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Vomiting, Wet Dream, mention of past Geralt/Eskel, mention of past Geralt/original male character, mention of past Jaskier/original male character, mention of past masturbation and both unintentional and somewhat intentional voyeurism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:42:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 64,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23427919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlossomsintheMist/pseuds/BlossomsintheMist
Summary: A sequel to "An Incomplete Happiness."  Geralt was injured on a hunt and is still recovering, and Jaskier seems to have assigned himself his willing caretaker and nurse, which leaves Geralt confused and baffled.  While they share a room and Geralt recovers, there's an emotional tension building between them, and it seems inevitable that it will find resolution sooner rather than later.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: Mixing Memory and Desire [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1685257
Comments: 314
Kudos: 1006
Collections: Fae's Favourite Witcher Works





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title from T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land."
> 
> _"April is the cruellest month, breeding  
>  Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing  
> Memory and desire, stirring  
> Dull roots with spring rain.  
> Winter kept us warm, covering  
> Earth in forgetful snow, feeding  
> A little life with dried tubers."_
> 
> I've been reading the short stories, so I tried some more to work in some book canon and game canon along with show canon, even though these are still the show characters first and foremost. Mainly, I mention the times Geralt has had to recover at the Temple of Melitele in Ellander and his friendship with Nenneke the priestess there.

Geralt woke sore, sore and aching, feeling very much like he’d ridden head-on into a stone cliff face, and more than a little confused. There was light slanting in over his shoulder, and he was aware of a hot, buzzing hurt, burrowed in like a swarm of digging wasps over his back, his side, in his thigh, and on top of that the tight hot ache of fever all through his body, under his skin. His head pounded dizzily, painfully, in a way that made him want to go right back to sleep to avoid it, and which all his training told him meant he should certainly struggle through it back into consciousness, in case that meant he was in danger. It took him a moment to place where he was, and he felt beside and behind him until his fingers closed around the hilt of one of his swords. The fact that they were within easy reach calmed him, and he subsided into the bed where he lay, blinked his eyes open. Aside from the obvious wounds and fever, he was warm and comfortable. And naked. He blinked his eyes open, shielded them against the light, peering into the room. It was late for him to be still asleep, with that light.

The inn. The bed. He remembered now, vaguely, the night before. He’d gone to kill one basilisk, found a nest, and paid for it with blood and most of his potion stock, but at least he’d finished the job. Jaskier had led him back to town on Roach. Jaskier had been there the whole night long, whenever he’d needed anything, hardly leaving him alone. Jaskier tending to him. Bathing him, sewing his wound closed. Looking after him. He reached up, slid a hand down under the blanket, to feel the careful bandaging at his side. More bandages around his shoulder and chest, and he grazed his fingers down over the edge of the bandage around his thigh. Not a fever dream, then. Much as it felt like it might have been one. Jaskier singing to him, in this very bed. Had he really not dreamed that? It felt like it had been a dream. He turned his head to his other side.

His eyes watered in the light, and he was developing a burgeoning headache from the fever from having them open, but he found Jaskier there, all right. He was curled in the blankets, toward Geralt, hugging one pillow to his chest, face pushed down between it and the bed and hair all kinds of tousled and sweat-stiff. He hadn’t remembered till he saw him there that he’d put on one of Geralt’s own shirts the night before. It was big and baggy on him, especially across the shoulders, and Geralt smiled to see it.

He was still sore, but he rolled carefully onto his side to face the bard. The curtains were askew, and he could see out one of them to see from the position of the sun in the sky that it was late morning. It was one of the benefits of Jaskier’s profession that the man never had to be up early and tended to perform late, because given a choice, he’d lie abed for hours in the morning. Incredibly, though, he always managed to get up with Geralt on the road and be ready in no time at all, as if perhaps if he took too long Geralt would just leave him out there, somewhere, in the woods. Though of course even before he’d really known him, Geralt would never have done that, left some normal human with nothing on him but a damned lute out in the wilderness on his own.

And now, of course, he knew him, so there was no chance of him losing him out there in the wilderness. None at all. He’d fight tooth and nail to go after him, if it came to that. Of course, he didn’t much mind Jaskier’s promptness, either.

Geralt smiled a little more to see him sleeping so deeply. He was glad of it. It was past time to be waking up, surely, but he was still glad that Jaskier seemed to have slept, and slept well. He’d seemed awfully tired the night before; Geralt had been able to see that even through the haze of wine and pain, and Geralt was aware that he himself had been a burden on him, that Jaskier had done a great deal in attempting to care for him, worn himself out. He was glad Jaskier had been able to stay abed today.

Geralt was not a sentimental sort of person, or at the least he didn’t usually allow himself to be sentimental, even if he felt it, but he let himself reach out and brush his fingers against Jaskier’s face again, one more time, feeling the soft barely-there rasp of morning stubble, feeling the healthy warmth of his skin under his callused fingers.

And this sort of mooning was going to get him in even bigger trouble than he was in already, but it was a temptation, feeling Jaskier’s skin warm from sleep and the bed, relaxed and easy with slumber under his fingers, so much softer than the hard, scarred hand that was touching him, even with his morning stubble. Geralt was being a fool. What was he touching him for?

He slid his hand back and shook Jaskier’s shoulder gently, tousling his hair with the palm of his hand, and Jaskier came awake with a start, huffing out a surprised yelp and a startled breath. “Oh,” he said, breathlessly. “I—Geralt.” He blinked up at him, then, suddenly, scrambled up to a sitting position. Geralt reached out to catch him, glad there was no low ceiling for him to run up against, for he certainly would have banged his head into it, and hard, if there had been. “Oof,” Jaskier said. “What time is it—” His eyes lit on Geralt. “You’re awake! How are you feeling?”

Geralt smiled, leaning back on one elbow. “Like a basilisk took a bite out of me,” he said, smiling with a fondness he didn’t bother to hide as Jaskier ran both hands back through his hair, looking around the room as if he was looking to place his memories of the night before in order, too.

“Right, right,” Jaskier muttered under his breath, wiped one hand across his eyes and his mouth, then frowned at Geralt, rubbing the back of his neck. “A basilisk _did_ take a bite out of you,” he said, “and you’re not funny.”

Geralt raised his eyebrows and chuckled. “Well, I’m still alive,” he said. “It’s a fine morning. What is there not to be glad about?”

Jaskier sighed, and reached forward, pressed the back of his hand to Geralt’s cheek, down along his jaw. Geralt let himself lean into it, just a little. Flirting with danger, again, but Jaskier’s touch felt good, and surely the man was affectionate enough himself to let it pass without making much of it. Jaskier shook his head at him, but he also ran his fingers up into Geralt’s hair, pushed it back from his face, and massaged gently at his temple and scalp. Geralt hummed in pleasure and let his eyes slip nearly closed. “You’re still hot,” Jaskier said accusingly. “You’re burning up with fever.”

There was no profit in denying it. “I never said I wouldn’t be,” Geralt mumbled.

Jaskier huffed a breath. “You’re supposed to be doing _better_ today,” he said, and his voice cracked a little, swung high.

Geralt reached out, took his wrist, held it reassuringly, opening his eyes again fully a bit unwillingly. “I’m doing fine, Jaskier,” he said. “You tended me well. I’ve rarely ever been tended so well. Only in the Temple of Melitele itself could I have had better nursing.” Jaskier smiled a little, at that, and relaxed into his hold, just a bit. “I’m much better,” Geralt assured him. Though it was always worse the second day for bruises, and he was feeling those very keenly indeed. “But yes, I’m fevered. It’s a natural part of the healing. All right, Jask?”

“But,” Jaskier said, looking around the room, as if lost. “But—”

“I’m going to be all right,” Geralt told him. He skimmed his palm down Jaskier’s forearm, rubbed it gently, then squeezed. “I promise you. You know I wouldn’t make a promise to you that I couldn’t keep.”

Jaskier swallowed, took a deep breath. “I do know that,” he said, “I—all right.” He gave Geralt a shaky smile, ran his other hand back through his hair, and patted Geralt’s better shoulder. “What you must think of me,” he said, then, with a little laugh. “You’re calm as anything and I’m—falling to pieces, and I wasn’t even the one chomped on by some monsters . . . .”

“Well,” Geralt said, fairly. “I have more experience with these things than you.” Jaskier had taken care of him so competently and kindly last night that he couldn’t imagine reproaching him for anything, let alone how well he was handling it. As far as Geralt was concerned, the other man had handled everything spectacularly well.

Jaskier was giving him an upset, sad, almost stricken sort of look at those words, and Geralt had no idea why, but then the bard was blinking it away and moving again, and Geralt wondered if perhaps he’d just imagined it. “I do have some experience,” Jaskier said. “I’ve seen plenty of—uh, monsters in your company.” He was trying to extricate himself from the bed without knocking into or jostling Geralt, which was clearly harder in the morning, when he was first waking up, than it had been the night before. Geralt lay back against the pillows, then offered him his arm, which Jaskier used to swing himself over his body with a muttered thanks and an oath when he stubbed his toe on the nearby chair. “Forgot I put that there,” he said sheepishly. “I don’t think I’d ever seen a full-grown basilisk before,” he said, then, and yawned, covering his mouth with one hand.

“You hadn’t,” Geralt said, glad that in fact Jaskier had only seen it from a long way off, before they’d tracked it to its lair. “Well, unless you saw one in Oxenfurt, or before.”

Jaskier snorted a laugh and gave him an amused grin. “No,” he drawled out, lingering over the sound. “Though I’m sure my natural philosophy professor would have killed to have a dead one to mount about the place and terrify the students.” He ran a hand back through his hair again, sliding it back into some semblance of order, then turned toward Geralt. “Need me for anything?” he asked, and when Geralt awkwardly admitted he could use some help with the chamber pot again—it was his damned hand, made it hard to balance or hold anything, with that palm scraped and bandaged—came back and helped him without complaint. “All right, be right back,” Jaskier said, and disappeared with it down the corridor.

Geralt sat up in bed and considered getting dressed and whether it was worth the effort it would cost him. It would help to convince Jaskier that he’d be all right, it would make him feel less vulnerable, but that was about all he could say for it. His head pounded abominably, and he felt nauseated whenever he moved too quickly and it pulled on the healing wounds. Part of that was the aftereffects of having taken about twenty potions in two days, he knew. It had kept him alive, but even his witcher’s physiology would be punishing him for it now. And his bruises hurt, a lot, a hot ever-present ache. His head spun, and he tried to push himself up and make it as far as the table and instantly regretted it. He forced himself to drag his aching body to the table anyway, braced himself against it, but every inch of him screamed at him for it, and he wavered and nearly fell. His wounds had stiffened, as had his muscles, overnight, and every inch of him ached and throbbed, tight and painful, with the fever, even his bones aching, in that horrible, grinding way fevers had, leaving him shivering and shaking. Geralt gave it up and stumbled back over to the bed, fell into it gratefully, deciding that it was less embarrassing and less alarming for everyone to just stay in bed rather than collapse to the floor and make Jaskier get him up again, have to try and move him. He was shaking so hard from the sudden chill that he dragged the blankets up over himself, curled down into them.

Jaskier took a good amount of time, and Geralt was dozing, sleeping off the exertion of trying to get out of bed at all, when he came back into the room. Geralt noticed he was clean now, freshly shaved and dressed in a fresh shirt, and blinked up at him with some confusion. Jaskier smiled. “Bath house down the road some ways,” he said. “Begged the clean shirt from the proprietress.” He had two bowls of groats in milk, rich with cream, butter, and dried currants, and put one down on the table, hooked the leg of it with his foot, and dragged it over in front of Geralt, then poured him a mug of something frothy in a pitcher he saw he’d been carrying. “Rye malt and rowanberry juice,” Jaskier said. “It’s not bad.” He poured himself a mugful, toasted him, and then drank it down before refilling his mug and putting it beside his own bowl on the table. He then moved Geralt’s swords off the chair and leaned them up against the bed beside him.

“Are you really this good at flirting?” Geralt asked, drowsily, as he looked at the luxuriant bowls of porridge, his voice thick with sleep and feeling hot and dizzy and only half awake. He realized vaguely that he was feeling hot again. He pushed himself up on his elbow.

Jaskier was laughing. “You doubt me, my friend?” he said. He was looking through the packs they’d brought up. Or, well, he or some maid had brought up while Geralt lay semi-conscious in bed, apparently. He’d carried Geralt’s shirt back over his arm, and he put it with his other shirts. He seemed to be sorting them somehow.

Geralt considered pointing out that Jaskier had introduced himself to Geralt by saying he shouldn’t keep a man with bread in his pants waiting, and if that was the technique he used with women, he was surprised he ever got anywhere at all. He decided, though, that that was unfair. Jaskier had been very young then, and he had probably learned better since. It was just that Geralt hadn’t seen much sign of it. “I never seem to witness these seductions,” he said. “That’s all.” He swung his legs over the side of the bed and took a swallow of the beverage Jaskier had provided. He was right, it wasn’t bad. Geralt started in on the porridge.

Jaskier tossed him a quick smile over his shoulder. “That’s true,” he said. “I’m never at my best in front of you. Put it down to . . . well, performance anxiety, I suppose.” He piled clothing into his arms, some of it Geralt’s and some of it his, and then turned and slipped out of the room again. He was back a moment later, sans the pile of clothing, while Geralt was still contemplating _performance anxiety_ , as if Jaskier had ever been anxious about a performance in his life. “Paid a maid to take it to the laundress,” he said, when he came back. “You could consider wearing something other than leather pants, you know.”

“Why?” Geralt asked, eating more groats. They were very good. Jaskier was spoiling him, and normally Geralt would have objected, but at the moment, he was inclined to let him. He was going to blame it on the fever and injuries and all the wine he’d consumed the night before and not examine his motives any more closely than that. He took another swallow of rye malt and rowanberry juice.

“Takes a professional to clean,” Jaskier said, and laughed. “No, it’s no matter. I’d rather your legs intact than save a few coins. Very nice legs, by the way. Good thighs.” He gestured vaguely toward Geralt in a manner that was apparently supposed to convey his good thighs. “That’s in fashion now, you know?” Jaskier continued, after a moment of apparent contemplation. “Tight hose, shows off the thighs. Most men don’t have the legs for it.” He was moving around the room, pushed the curtain off one side of the window and looked out of it, then turned back toward Geralt. “Of course, most men don’t run around killing giant monsters with a big sword. That’s got to help with the shapely thigh muscles business.” He grinned. “That wasn’t intended to be a euphemism for anything, even if it sounded like one. Though that’s awfully big, too, isn’t it? You’re a walking source of inadequacy for lesser men, Geralt.” He threw himself down into the chair across the table.

“Hmm,” Geralt said, and tapped the spoon on the side of the bowl with some frustration, because it wasn’t easy to figure out how to respond to Jaskier’s commenting on the size of his cock. He reflected, also, that he was glad that several years ago during the betrothal in Cintra tight hose had _not_ been the fashion, or surely Jaskier would have tried to get him into them. “I’m not putting on tight hose,” he said, and then considered that perhaps he shouldn’t have. Jaskier might take it as a challenge. “And you’ve never seemed intimidated,” he added.

Jaskier laughed. “Because I’m not,” he said. “I’m quite confident in my abilities.” He winked at him. Geralt shoved another spoonful of groats into his mouth rather than respond. That really would be asking for trouble. Curious as he was about Jaskier’s _abilities_. Geralt had come to the conclusion some time ago that, considering his reputation, Jaskier had to be good in bed, at least partly because he’d never seen him leave a lover who looked at all dissatisfied. Even the ones who were throwing his trousers at his head. He never let himself dwell on that much. The last thing he needed was to start—imagining. Even imagining what the bard kissed like was bad enough, and asking for enough trouble.

And stupid, anyway. Setting himself up for nothing but disappointment. Kissing was for—for lovers, and Geralt had never spent much time doing it with a bed partner. That wasn’t what most people who went to bed with him were interested in. He’d learned that a long time ago. Who would be, with a witcher? But Geralt had never been able to stamp out his curiosity entirely, especially regarding whether Jaskier ever actually went to bed with men. Or his jealousy, come to that, which was stupid and unworthy. What right did Geralt have to be jealous? The witcher, solitary by profession and nature as well as choice, jealous of the near-countless lovers of his friend the famous bard was a laughable story at best, and Geralt tried his best not to dwell on it or live it any more than he absolutely had to.

Better to focus on more prosaic concerns. “Aren’t you going to eat yours?” he asked and nodded at Jaskier’s bowl of porridge.

“Mmm, yes, getting to it,” Jaskier said, and he dug in. Satisfied, Geralt returned to his own meal. He finished it off, lifted the bowl and drank the rest of the milk, then finished the mugful of sour fruity rye malt, watching as Jaskier ate his own breakfast, writing something down in his notebook all the while.

“Composing again?” Geralt asked, finally.

Jaskier jumped, then said, “Mmm, yes, a bit,” with a small smile up at him. “I’m sorry, did you need me for something?”

“Not at the moment,” Geralt said, admittedly with bad grace. He didn’t like having to rely on anyone else, even with as generous as Jaskier had been with him. Especially with as generous as he’d been. Geralt had been enough of a burden already. “Don’t let me interrupt you.”

“Not at all,” Jaskier said. “I am here at your command, Geralt. Don’t hesitate to interrupt me if you should need my help for anything, even the merest trifle.” He smiled at him more widely. Fondly, Geralt thought, or was he just imagining things again? Probably not, considering everything Jaskier had said, sung, and done for him over the past days. He knew Jaskier was fond of him, at least. He just wasn’t certain why, or how that had come about.

“I’ve bothered you enough,” Geralt muttered.

“Mmm, no,” Jaskier said. “No, you haven’t. Which is to say that it is _not_ a bother to help you if and when you need me, that, in fact, I’m happy I can be of use to you, and that I’d feel nothing but the acutest pleasure in bathing your aching brow tenderly or whatever you happened to need, and I don’t want you to have the slightest notion of holding yourself back from asking for anything you need from me, anything at all.” He smiled winningly at him. “I live to be bothered, Geralt,” he said.

Geralt stared at him.

“What, too much?” Jaskier asked ruefully, and ducked his head, ran his hand back through his hair, pushing it off his forehead. “Did I come on too strong? I did a little, didn’t I?”

“A little,” Geralt agreed, mostly because his heart was beating twice as fast as normal, not that a human would probably notice, and he felt hot and a little dizzy. Which was, again, unforgivably stupid, considering that lighthearted, talkative Jaskier was clearly mostly joking. It was just that—that people didn’t _say_ things like that to him. Not . . . well, not ever. It made Geralt feel as if he didn’t know what to do with himself, awkward and stupid. Especially when Jaskier was joking.

“Hmm, well, sorry,” Jaskier said, with a wry, soft little smile that did things to the inside of Geralt’s chest. “The point stands, though. Don’t be worried about bothering me. I’m not bothered. Ask me for anything you need. That’s why I’m here. Happy to help.”

“Thought you were here to get material for your songs,” Geralt grunted, but only because he was afraid he wanted to put more weight on Jaskier’s constant company, or on his words, than he should. He was being stupid again, taking it so personally. If he let himself—if he let himself think—he didn’t have to let himself open up to be hurt more than it had to, that was all. He knew how these things went by now, after all.

“Mmm, well,” Jaskier said, obscurely, gave him a smile that Geralt found hard to read, and winked at him again, turning back to his writing so that his hair fell into his face.

What was _that_ supposed to mean? Geralt hoped he wasn’t meant to have the first idea, because he didn’t. He sighed, and pushed himself back, lay back in the bed again. His eyes were growing more and more sensitive to the light, and he rolled over, let his hot forehead rest in the pillow and buried his closed eyes in the dimness to stop his head’s relentless throbbing.

“Geralt,” it was Jaskier’s voice, hesitant now, a little worried. “Are you feeling all right?”

“Just tired,” Geralt said, without bothering to lift his head.

“Well, you . . . probably need your sleep,” Jaskier said, faltering a little. “I—I was going to brush up a little, if I’m to play tonight, but is that going to bother you? If you need a—a more restful environment I’m sure I can find someplace else to practice.”

“No,” Geralt said. “That should be fine.” Not only could he sleep through a very great deal, he was used to having Jaskier around. His singing and playing wouldn’t be much of a bother, surely.

And he wanted him there. Besides, he didn’t want to turn him out, not unless he wanted to go. Something occurred to him, then, and he lifted his head, pressed himself back upward with his arms.

“You told the innkeeper you’d perform every night for a week,” he said.

“Ah, yes, so I did,” Jaskier said. He smiled, rested his chin on his fist. “Heard that, did you? I always forget how good your ears are.” Something seemed to occur to him, and he straightened up. “I’m sorry. Is that too long? I wanted it to be a long enough time that the man felt he was getting a deal, and I wanted you to have some time to . . . rest.”

Geralt smiled. “You can say recover,” he said. “My ego isn’t that easily injured. But Jaskier—a whole week?”

“You were bleeding all over everywhere!” Jaskier said, raising his hands and gesturing broadly, wildly, with them. “You looked as if you’d been torn to pieces! I thought a week was reasonable!”

“Not that,” Geralt said, waving away his recovery time. It was a little long, a week, longer than he’d have taken for himself, certainly, but that wasn’t what he was concerned with just then. He could use some of the extra time to work himself back into condition and replace his stock of potions. He was going to express his thanks again, but then he remembered that Jaskier had asked him the night before not to keep thanking him for things, and if Jaskier wanted it, it seemed like the least he could do was to abide by that request, after everything Jaskier had done for him already. “You don’t mind?” he asked, finally, settling on that instead.

Jaskier laughed, and his smile was genuine and soft. “Not at all,” he said.

“I mean,” Geralt said. “The innkeeper seemed . . . hmm. Abrasive. I hope the crowd isn’t too bad. I mean, I hope it’s not too much of a chore.” He felt stupid. He knew the reason the innkeeper had been rude was because of him, because he was—what he was, and he wasn’t sure what to say.

Jaskier smiled, shifted in the chair to bring his feet up onto it, bracing his knees against the table and linking his arms around them. “If they are bad,” he said, his smile widening into a grin, “it will just be a challenge. You know I do enjoy a challenge, Geralt. And I daresay this crowd isn’t the type to throw fruit at me. They’d rather keep it all for themselves. So I should do well enough. I’ll let you know how I go.”

Geralt studied his face. He looked relaxed and easy, and if he was putting Geralt off with sweet words just to placate him, there was no sign of it.

“Geralt,” Jaskier said, after a moment, softly. “Normally wouldn’t I be begging you to stay in town just a little longer, so I could perform a little longer, make some more coin?”

“Hmm,” Geralt said. He was right, he admitted to himself. That was more their usual pattern. “All right.” He thought of something else. “You don’t need to stay here just to watch over me,” he added. Jaskier was usually so . . . active whenever they were in a town, talking to everyone, laughing, all over the place, as if he needed a look at everyone and everything. He was usually involved in two love affairs and a deathless feud by the second day. “I’ll just be resting and recovering. I won’t be up to much, so do as you—just do whatever you’d like to do.”

Jaskier smiled, leaned forward, put his feet back down on the floor, toyed with his mug between his hands. He looked as if he would speak, subsided, licked his bottom lip, then hummed a little and looked down. “Yes,” he said. “Well. I will, my friend.” He skimmed his thumb around the rim of the mug. “And one of the things I want to do is be certain you’re all right.” He tilted his head to one side and looked up at him again. “You’re sure it won’t bother you if I play?”

Geralt realized he was smiling himself and hid it in the pillow. He was acting like a fool. A besotted, lovestruck fool. It was pathetic. He had to stop this. Injury was no excuse. “Not at all,” he said.

“Good,” Jaskier said, softly. “You just concentrate on healing, all right?”

“Mmm,” Geralt said, and turned his face further in toward the pillows.

In fact, it took him no time at all to fall asleep again. It was a luxury, to be sleeping off his injuries in a bed in a warm room in an inn, he thought, moments before he was lost in sleep entirely. Maybe he could go down and see how Roach was doing in the stable later. Once he could keep his feet more reliably. He wondered if she appreciated the warm stall as much as he did the bed. And then he was asleep in truth.

It was usual for Geralt to sleep deeply and dream fitfully when he was feverish, but this time, he woke a few times, or nearly woke, to hear Jaskier’s strumming on his lute, his voice as he sang or hummed or talked to himself. Whenever he did, that familiar, pleasant voice would remind Geralt where he was, that he was safe and all was well, that there was no need for him to act or even to do much of anything in particular, and he would fall asleep again easily. It was a surprising comfort, to know the other man was there, to hear him moving around the room, to hear snatches of the songs he was practicing. Eventually Geralt woke enough to roll over on his good shoulder, found that there was a pitcher of cool water beside his bed and another earthenware mug, and he poured himself some and drank, grateful for the coolness against his heated skin, the heat of his fever, before he fell back into an insensible sleep.

He dreamed, this time, uneasily. A recurring dream, running through a forest, knowing he was tracking something and unable to find it even as he tired, and knowing that something even worse loomed behind him, on his own trail. When he finally thought he would come upon whatever he was tracking, he found himself instead in the royal hall at Cintra where he’d invoked the Law of Surprise, except that it was empty, with the vortex Pavetta had called up all around him, tearing the room to shreds. But the princess wasn’t there, and neither was her lover, or her mother, or the court, or Mousesack. The only other one there was Jaskier, but he was playing his lute, apparently heedless of his danger, no matter how Geralt called out for him. He woke shaking and sweaty to find Jaskier there, sitting beside him, jolted awake only to find Jaskier’s hands pressing him back into the bed.

“Shh, shhh,” Jaskier murmured. “See, didn’t I tell you? Your fever is worse.”

“Has to get worse before it gets better,” Geralt rasped, feeling his mouth dip sideways in a half smile. His facial muscles felt loose and relaxed and only partially under his control. He was only halfway aware of where he was, only that Jaskier was there, and though there was a line of distress between his fine brows, he looked only a little distressed, not outright frightened or desperate the way he might if something were truly wrong. He himself was very hot, and his head felt very, very heavy. He kept wondering why it was so hot, then realizing it wasn’t the room, it was him.

“Is that it?” Jaskier asked. His voice was very soft, and Geralt wondered if it was to spare his aching head. It ached awfully, even as Jaskier reached forward, pressed his cool hand to Geralt’s jaw. Geralt sighed, let his eyes slide closed again, rested his face in Jaskier’s hand. “I guess it’s time to live up to what I was saying earlier,” Jaskier murmured.

“Hmm?” Geralt asked, without opening his eyes. Jaskier’s hand felt good on his jaw, better as it brushed his hair back from his face, gently slid over his cheekbone, his temple, his forehead, and back to his jaw. It made his head hurt less.

“About bathing your fevered brow,” Jaskier said, chuckling a little. He brought his hand away, and Geralt bit the inside of his cheek so he didn’t make a complaining noise of loss. There was a moment, and then there was a cool cloth against Geralt’s face. It brought with it blissful relief, a coolness that broke through the oppressive heat and sent little shivers through Geralt’s body, welcome though they were. He took a deep breath, what felt like his first deep breath in hours, as if he hadn’t been aware of how he’d been burning until Jaskier had offered relief.

Jaskier bathed his face carefully, every inch of it, brought the cool cloth down over his neck, pressed it against the underside of his jaw, then pressed it around the back of his neck, under his hair, down over his shoulders, then back up again. Jaskier’s every touch was cooling bliss, and though Geralt normally would never let himself indulge in soaking up Jaskier’s touch like this, revel in it the way he always wanted to, he simply didn’t have the strength to resist the urge to chase after his hand, to turn his face into his every touch. Jaskier was muttering something to himself, even as he wet the cloth again and brought it back against Geralt’s hot skin, began the soothing motions of dragging its wet, cool, dripping softness over his skin again, along his jaw and up over his cheeks.

“Mmm,” Geralt finally thought to say. “That’s good.”

“You are very out of it, aren’t you,” Jaskier said, with a nervous little chuckle. Geralt felt his brow crease with sudden concern, felt a spike of sudden guilt, wondering if he was needed, if he was letting Jaskier down or doing something wrong, but before his feverish brain could even finish forming the thought, Jaskier said, his voice calm and soothing and light enough that Geralt decided all must be well after all, “That’s all right, Geralt. You need the rest.”

“Mmm,” Geralt managed. He thought he’d better double check. “It’s all right?”

“Of course it’s all right,” Jaskier said, and his voice was very certain, very matter-of-fact, and thus Geralt assumed it must be so. He was sure Jaskier wouldn’t lie to him about something like that.

“Hmm,” Geralt said. “Good.” He didn’t think he could have done much other than this in any case, so that was definitely very good. He let his eyes slip fully closed again and let Jaskier bathe his face. He was good at it, Geralt thought, though he had little to compare it to, and thorough, cradling Geralt’s head between his hands as he made sure to wet the back of his neck again, then folding the cloth and pressing it, damp, to Geralt’s forehead. Not since he was a child had he been tended to like this. Jaskier reached down, found Geralt’s better hand. He clasped it firmly between both of his, and Geralt felt him press his lips to his knuckles in a quick kiss. Quick though it was, it sent warmth dancing through Geralt like a flickering flame, curling up warm in his belly and lingering there like embers. Against all logic, he shivered helplessly at that warmth.

“What else do you need, Geralt?” Jaskier asked after a moment. “More water?” He poured another mugful, propped Geralt up and held it to his lips. Geralt drank, more because Jaskier wanted him to than for any other reason, and afterward found himself shivering at the coolness instead, suddenly chill. Jaskier pushed him back down, adjusted the blankets over him, soothing his shivers, and then carefully shifted the wet cloth on his forehead, smoothing it down and pushing back Geralt’s hair with his fingers.

“How’s Roach?” Geralt asked.

“Wh—oh, she’s fine,” Jaskier said. “I checked in on her this morning before I left for the bath, gave her an apple. Why should we be the only recipients of my ill-gotten gains, after all, right? She asked after you.”

Jaskier did that a lot, pretended that Geralt’s habit of talking to the horse wasn’t odd at all and carried on whole pretend conversations with Roach himself. Geralt wasn’t surprised that Jaskier had gone to check on her; he was determined to make a pet of her.

Geralt made a noise of satisfaction to hear that the horse was all right, and that Jaskier had looked in on her, and said, “Then nothing.”

“Nothing at all, eh?” Jaskier murmured softly, a bit forlornly, almost sad, Geralt thought, though he couldn’t think why. Jaskier’s hand moved over his arm, stroking along his biceps, almost petting, caressing. “Give you some water and take care of your horse and you’re happy. Well, sleep for a while, Geralt, hmm? If you can.”

“I will,” Geralt said, thickly, dizzy with the fever, shivering and alternately hot and cold, but content enough for all that. “You go on.”

“Oh, I will,” Jaskier said, but Geralt was aware, vaguely, as he slipped down into sleep again, that Jaskier hadn’t yet moved, was still sitting with his hip angled pressed against Geralt’s hip, and his fingers were tangled with Geralt’s on top of the blankets, their hands linked together. It was a comfort, actually, to slide back into sleep and dreams with Jaskier’s hand in his, rather than to go alone into the fevered darkness.

He dreamed again, but each dream he lost nearly as soon as he had had it. He knew he dreamed of Blaviken, a hundred other towns and a thousand other failures, knew he dreamed of Kaer Morhen again, knew he woke holding tightly to Jaskier’s hand, holding it against his chest, over his medallion, and raving, babbling something probably entirely incomprehensible. He was aware of Jaskier leaning forward, pressing their foreheads together, saying something soft, soothing, talking him back into sleep. Knew he woke again, later, feeling hot and very sweaty, out of a dream of a desert, hot and bright in his eyes and his pounding head, to find Jaskier walking around the room, strumming his lute, apparently lost in thought. When he saw Geralt’s eyes on him, he put it down and came to his side, and then another cup of water was at his lips. He drank gratefully, tried to thank Jaskier with his eyes even as the words seemed not to want to come to his lips, and fell back into slumber. He dreamed of following a single swallow on foot until his boots wore through and his head ached from squinting into the sun, and then he was cold, freezing with winter chill, dreaming of a bad winter he hadn’t spent back in Kaer Morhen because he’d been young and stupid, dreamed of freezing to death. He’d found an old woman, frozen to death in her own home. No monster there, only tragedy. He’d buried her with his own hands. Was that why his hand hurt so, had he torn it open on the frozen ground? He woke again to find himself shivering violently in the cold, so cold his bones ached, and Jaskier with his hand wrapped around his forearm, arms clasped together, holding his hand still, the other clasped in his other hand, rocking him slightly and murmuring to him. “Jaskier?” he asked, dizzy and unfocused.

“I’m here, Geralt,” he said. His voice was soft.

“Build up the fire so you don’t freeze,” Geralt said.

Jaskier made a strangled noise, said, “What?” but it was distant, because Geralt was slipping back into the dreams.

When he woke the next time, Geralt was hot and sweating again. He wasn’t sure what he’d been dreaming of, but he came awake all at once, panting, his hand clenched around his medallion, the other clutching at the bed until he flinched as his painful palm pushed into the mattress. He was heaving for breath as if he’d been running hard for miles and miles or in a hard fight, and he was aware that his hair was falling into his eyes, and he looked wildly around the room for the threat once, twice, three times, before he realized he’d been dreaming and fell back into the bed with a gasp.

“Geralt?” Jaskier said, and Geralt looked up to see him putting his lute aside again, crossing the room to his side. He picked up another cup of something as he passed the table, then was sitting beside Geralt on the bed again. Geralt realized the bedclothes felt sweat-damp and smelled of fever and sweat. Jaskier’s face looked tight and drawn as he reached forward, gently pushed hair back out of Geralt’s face, and helped lift his head for the cup without a word. Geralt didn’t protest though he could smell it wasn’t just water, trusting whatever Jaskier gave him. He smelled herbs in the cup, and tasted a cold tisane of some kind, linden and meadowsweet and birch, yarrow, elderflower, chamomile, and peppermint. Catnip, sage, and borage. And honey.

“Not bad,” he said, when he’d swallowed most of it. Jaskier had been running his free hand gently across Geralt’s forehead, and he startled and blinked at him, as if he hadn’t expected him to speak.

“I,” he said. “Oh. It was. That is. I remembered the tea you’d given me the last time I took ill. Remember? I was moaning, so convinced I wouldn’t be able to perform at all at Midwinter, and I was fevered, and you—well, anyway, you showed me where you kept it. So I wouldn’t have to bother you next time, you said.”

“Good memory,” Geralt said. Though he’d added mallow root, to that he’d mixed for Jaskier. For his throat.

“Well,” Jaskier said, and smiled a little sheepishly, and looked down. “It was only a few months ago.” He rubbed his hands against his thighs. “I do try not to be completely useless,” he said, more quietly.

Geralt frowned, because that wasn’t right, especially not after all that Jaskier had been doing for him, that he knew he had been doing for him. That made no sense at all. He reached out for Jaskier, ended up just encircling his bare forearm loosely with his hot palm, before he ran out of energy. “No,” he rasped out, frowning, but he was already tired.

“No?” Jaskier asked idly, and he looked at him, but Geralt felt he wasn’t really speaking to him. Probably because Geralt hadn’t been aware enough to be spoken to coherently for a long while—some hours? He thought, anyway, though it could have been days, for all he knew. But no, Jaskier was still here, practicing. It couldn’t have been days. Jaskier linked their hands, though, held his gently against his own thigh, stroking his thumb along the base of Geralt’s in a gentle touch that made him shake and tremble and tingle all through his body, down to his bones, to the crown of his head, the soles of his feet. “No, I’m not useless?” He smiled at him a little, a soft little wistful self-mocking sort of smile, tilted his head to one side. “Goddess knows what you meant to say. No doubt not that. No, I’m very useless? I do try to be of use to you, Geralt. Gods grant I don’t know how well I do. I’ve never been a very useful sort of person, have I? But at least you’re not sleeping on the cold ground, and you’ve had plenty to eat, and you’ve been warm, hmm? To be fair, your coin paid for this room initially. What would you have done without me really, I wonder?” He lifted Geralt’s hand, holding it sideways in his own, curled his fingers around his fingers, pressed his lips to his knuckles again, as gentle and courtly as if Geralt were some noble lady, then held it in both of his. “Probably let that wretched old lout throw you and Roach back out in the rain,” he murmured softly. “And you’d be out there, like this.” He shuddered. “Goddess. At least I can help you with that much.”

Everything in Geralt wanted to fade back into feverish sleep, and the jackass that lived in his brain and he usually let rule his tongue suggested about four or five snarky bullshit things he could have said, but he pushed them all back and instead he turned his hand in Jaskier’s, made an effort to squeeze back. “You’re a long way from useless to me, Jask,” he said, and, exhausted from the effort, closed his eyes and went back to sleep.

But Jaskier was missing the point, Geralt thought, half-asleep. Jaskier clearly didn’t at all understand why Geralt liked to be around him, or the best things about having him around, whenever Jaskier wanted to travel with him again. No one kept a nightingale in a gilded cage despite all the bird shit because it was _useful_. Jaskier was everything Geralt wasn’t, bright and pretty and interested and full of engagement with the world, with life. It felt like an insult to everything the other man was, like trying to ground a bird or catch hold of the wind, to imply that he would have to be damned _useful_ to have any value. Geralt didn’t have the first chance of figuring out how to put that into words now, with his tongue barely cooperating and his head worse off, but he tried to remember the thought, for later, tried to remember that it had been important.

He dreamed again, of Renfri. It was a recurring dream, him trying to apologize, her not responding at all, as if she couldn’t hear him. Talking about how she was a monster, and him repeating like it would somehow change what had happened, _I shouldn’t have gotten involved, I can’t get involved_. This time, though, she turned to him. “You’re an idiot, you know,” she said with that aggressive frankness of hers.

Geralt blinked. He agreed, of course, but she hardly ever spoke to him in these dreams, and it twinged something inside his chest with a determined, painful ache.

“Oh, not because of me,” she said. “No, I mean, that was stupid, but understandable. I didn’t expect anything else. You did exactly as I thought you would, if not exactly what I wanted. But I don’t see what’s stopping you, with your friend, that’s all. Yes, no, with me, you were all certainty. You’re one thing or the other, Renfri. You slept with me in the woods, right enough, even if I did have to put all the moves on you myself. What’s the hold up with him? That’s what I don’t understand. It isn’t as if you don’t like men as well.”

“How do you know that?” Geralt asked. He didn’t exactly make it public knowledge, or obvious, at all, he didn’t think, and he hadn’t known Renfri long. She just raised her eyebrows at him.

“How do you think?” she asked, which made no sense at all, of course. But it was a dream. He supposed she meant that she, being a dream of a dead girl, could know everything he knew, if she wanted.

“What do you want from me?” Geralt managed to rasp out.

She laughed. “What do _I_ want? Geralt, I’m dead. The question is what do _you_ want. And what does your pretty bard want from you, hmm? Can you give it to him? That’s the real question. Isn’t it? Can you give it to any person at all?”

The question was a cruel one, or so it struck him. He’d already come to his conclusions. Why would his subconscious, or Renfri’s ghost, or whoever he spoke to, want to dig the knife in deeper? “Who would want it?” Geralt demanded of her, teeth bared, gritted as if against a wound.

“Mmm,” she said. She reached out and touched him, and her fingertips were as cool as death against his face. “Monster to monster, you’re asking the wrong person. Ask the one you’re thinking of giving it to, not me. You don’t know how he’d respond, after all, do you?”

“He’s human,” Geralt gritted out.

“Mmm,” Renfri said, nodding, her eyes fixed on his. “Human.” Her cool fingers trailed down over his throat, over his chest, rested over his heart. “And what’s this, then?” she asked. “What are you? What was I? When I cut my finger, I bleed. When I overeat, my stomach aches. When I’m happy, I laugh. When I’m upset, I swear. What are you, Geralt not-of-Rivia-at-all?”

“You know what I am,” Geralt growled at her.

“But do you?” Renfri asked.

If she said anything more, Geralt didn’t remember it. He ended up dreaming of a djinn strangling him beside a riverside. He fought back, of course, and ended up falling into a bunch of lilac trees above a stand of gooseberry bushes, grasping for his sword but having his palm squish into green berries and sharp thorns instead.

 _Honestly, Geralt_ , Vesemir said. _A monster isn’t going to stand around waiting for you to get your sword out. Keep your hand on your damned blade. How many times have I told you?_

Geralt woke panting and searching for his sword, grasping for it and finding nothing but sweaty sheets and blankets that twisted, clinging, around his arm. He swore, pushed himself up, violently—and found Jaskier there, gripping his hand in place of his sword, and pushing him back down into the bed with his other hand on his chest, making certain he lay back on his side rather than aggravate the wound on his back. “Shh,” he said, stroking his hand down over Geralt’s arm, over his biceps. “Shhh. Everything’s all right. No monsters to fight just now. All right? You just sleep. All is well.”

“Are you all right?” Geralt rasped out, feeling as if he needed to ask, searching Jaskier’s face and finding strain and weariness. He reached out, pressed his hand against Jaskier’s skin, feeling the gentle give of it, smooth under his rough hand, pressed his thumb in against Jaskier’s cheekbone, almost at his eye, to feel the reality of him. Jaskier jerked a little, sucked in his breath, bit his bottom lip, then reached up and took Geralt’s hand in his again, pressing his cheek into his palm for just a moment before turning to kiss the heel of it and pulling away. “Are you sure you’re all right?” The question rasped in Geralt's throat.

Jaskier laughed a little, but it was strained, odd, a little weary, still holding Geralt’s hand in both of his, but looking away. “Yes, Geralt, I’m fine,” he said. “Of course I’m all right. Aren’t I always? Shhh now.”

He was not always all right, Geralt wanted to protest. He’d been sick at midwinter, he’d needed Geralt to protect him from angry noble cuckolds, a gang of brothers had once tried to string him up and geld him for his attentions to their sister but only gotten as far as roughing him up dramatically before Geralt had learned of it and put a stop to the business, he’d been poisoned, kicked in the ribs, broken his ankle, had rocks thrown at him, and once a necker had nearly taken a big chunk out of his calf and Geralt had carried to him to a healer on Roach while Jaskier pretended he wasn’t teary eyed from pain and clutched at his shoulders. “Jaskier,” he said again, in protest.

“What is it?” Jaskier said at once. “What do you need?” His hand came down to Geralt’s wrist, felt down his forearm, his palm pressing onto Geralt’s forehead again, fingers against his cheek. He made an unhappy, dissatisfied noise, and Geralt heard the sound of water, liquid moving, and then a cool soft cloth was back again, wet and stroking along his face, down his neck, leaving it starry and cold with water dripping down along his skin.

Geralt felt himself smile. “Like I said,” he rasped out, “a good nurse.”

Jaskier chuckled a little, smoothed the cloth over Geralt’s forehead, and Geralt took a deep breath, blew it out, let that touch soothe him.

“I need nothing, Jaskier,” he said, then, drowsy.

“Take some more water, anyway,” Jaskier said, and it was more trouble than it was worth to refuse, so Geralt cooperated as he lifted Geralt’s head up, tilted the cup for him. He drank it down gratefully, would have laid down on his back but for the way Jaskier caught him, with a warning, “ah, ah. Wound on the back, remember? Acid burn, nasty thing?” Jaskier rolled him onto his side, and Geralt sighed, nodded, and subsided into the bed again on his side and shoulder, closed his eyes. “Are you feeling any better?” Jaskier asked, after another moment. His hand was lingering on Geralt’s bare arm. It felt good there.

Geralt smiled into the pillow. “Not so far,” he said. “I’ll be doing better soon,” he added after that. “No need to hover.”

“Who’s hovering?” Jaskier asked.

“You are,” Geralt said. “I’m fine. I’m going back to sleep.”

Jaskier gave another little chuckle, and his hand gently pressed at Geralt’s elbow. “All right,” he said. “You do that.” And then, more quietly, as if he were mostly just speaking to himself, “I’ll be right here.”

Hovering, Geralt thought, but it made him smile, and he was still smiling when he fell asleep again. If he dreamed again, he didn’t remember it, and he woke up later, sore and aching and damp with sweat. The room was darker. The sun had shifted, getting on toward late afternoon. Geralt blinked awake, slowly, looked around the room. Jaskier was there, still, sitting at the table, though he seemed distracted. His lute was in his lap. “Oh, Geralt,” he said, a few moments after Geralt woke, when he twitched with discomfort and the need to relieve himself, trying to push himself up, and crossed the room to his side, felt his forehead again. He helped him out of bed so he could piss, then came back with more hot water and sponged him down, carefully, over his back and chest and thighs and arms, even as Geralt sighed at the heat, rinsing off fever-sweat and leaving him clean again. “I suppose I should change these bandages,” Jaskier said, apparently speaking mostly to himself. “Would that be too bothersome, Geralt?”

“No,” Geralt managed to grunt out. Jaskier’s hand was stroking the warm, wet cloth up and down softly at the small of his back, and it felt incredibly good, made his skin tingle with his nearness, with the warmth, even more than it hurt from the fever.

“All right, then,” Jaskier said, again as if to himself. He patted Geralt’s shoulder, then took his hand away, and Geralt bit the inside of his cheek again against making a sound at the loss of his touch. “You just lie still.” He was up in another moment, and was back not long after, with fresh bandages and the salves he’d used the night before in his hands. He sat by Geralt’s side and began unwinding the bandages from around the wound in Geralt’s thigh. Geralt swallowed, feeling very vulnerable, suddenly, lying there with his legs spread and Jaskier’s careful hands unwrapping linen from around his thigh, working between them. He tugged the blanket up a little more carefully between his legs, tucked it over himself just as carefully. Jaskier just patted his calf muscle and got back to work, unpeeling the bandages with a gentle care that still seemed surreal to Geralt, impossibly kind and careful. It stuck, of course, and Jaskier hissed out his breath as if he was the one for whom the bandage was sticking to the skin with blood, as if he was the one it was hurting, and he flinched as it came free and there was fresh blood on the bandage, bit his bottom lip.

“It’s nothing, Jaskier,” Geralt said, blearily, trying to bring his thoughts into focus with an effort. “It’s good for it to bleed a little.”

“You’ve already bled a great deal,” Jaskier said with some heat, dabbing a little bit at the wound with the cleanest bit of the old bandage. “I daresay you don’t need to bleed any further. You didn’t—see yourself on the way back, just sitting there on Roach and bleeding away, it running all down your leg, and—and. My hands were covered in it.” He took a deep, heaving, shaking breath, as if to steady himself.

“I frightened you,” Geralt realized, and wondered why he felt so surprised.

Jaskier gave him an almost offended, incredulous, look, almost a pout, and scrubbed his free hand over his forehead, near his eye. “Geralt,” he said, reproachfully. “I—yes, of course I was bloody frightened! And bloody, and frightened, at that, might I add. I was covered in it, Geralt, in your blood! And I—I thought—” he swallowed, hard, going pale, then flushing a deep, blotchy pink. “I thought you were going to die in my arms, back there, for a moment, when you first came out of that, that bloody cave, and trust me, that, it—well, it might be good in a song, but in real life it, it’s bloody bollocks, is what it is! And I—I—”

Geralt put his hand on Jaskier’s arm, squeezed. “Jaskier, there’s no need for this,” he said. “I’m all right. See?” He took Jaskier’s hand, pulled it to his chest, and clasped it there. “I’m all right.” He considered that that might not be the most convincing statement, considering, and added, “And I’m getting better.”

Jaskier’s hand curled into a fist, and he let his head drop forward, panting a little for breath. “Geralt,” he said, his voice strangled. “I—” he sucked in a breath that seemed to tremble, and then his head was up again, his eyes flashing and his jaw set. “What would you have done if I hadn’t been there?” he demanded.

Geralt shrugged a little and sighed, knowing his response wouldn’t be the most reassuring. “Grabbed whatever potion first came to hand,” he said, “probably Swallow, and drank it, and not healed as quickly or as cleanly. But still healed.”

“Right,” Jaskier said, wryly and a little ruefully, Geralt thought, his mouth twisting, then smoothing out on a rough little laugh, as he rubbed at his forehead again, ran a hand back through his hair. “I always forget that you don’t need me at all, don’t I? You need no one, isn’t that it?”

Geralt, who had been drawing in breath to say just that, was stymied, and thus frowned at the other man. “If I die that’s my own business, that’s all,” he said, carefully, picking his way through the words as he struggled to put them in order, to think them out, through the heat of his fever. He felt as if it were very important somehow, suddenly, that he make Jaskier understand what he meant to say. “It’s not your fault, or any of your doing. You don’t need that burden.”

Jaskier sucked in his breath as if startled, or pricked by a sudden thorn, and he stared at him. “Geralt,” he said. “Do you—do you imagine that I would care nothing if you died, whether I was there or not? Do you imagine feeling for you is a burden to me?”

Geralt felt himself flushing, over the heat of his fever, discomfited and awkward, and hoped it wasn't noticeable, looked to the side. “Not that,” he said gruffly, to cover his fluster. “You needn’t feel responsible for it, is what I mean. If I die, Jaskier, it won’t be your fault one way or another. No witcher has ever died peacefully at home in his bed.”

“Well, isn’t that depressing,” Jaskier muttered. “I mean, really. Is that true?”

Geralt blinked. “Of course it’s true,” he said. Why wouldn’t it be true? He’d already spoken to Jaskier about that. Witchers didn’t stop until they slowed and got killed. It happened to all of them, sooner or later.

“Great Goddess,” Jaskier said, sounding huffy. His cheeks were very flushed.

Geralt didn’t know what to make of that, so he just continued on with what he’d been saying. “So what it comes down to is that you need not feel . . . responsible to follow after me to try and keep me alive,” he said. “Your help is appreciated, but not . . . That’s . . . it’s not a burden you need bear. It need not be any care of yours. If I die, I die on my own merit, or fault, and if I live, I live.”

“You don’t think I have a care for you regardless?” Jaskier said. “Geralt, I swear, you can be the most thickheaded, stubborn man alive. I’m very much afraid I’m going to care about you one way or another, and there’s nothing you can do about it now.”

Geralt found his throat entirely dry. He swallowed, not certain what he was going to say, what he _could_ say to that. “Jaskier, I—” he started, only to be forestalled by Jaskier holding up one hand.

“Ah, ah,” he said. “I don’t want to hear what you’d begin to come up with in response to that. You don’t need to respond. I just want that thought rattling around in that thick head of yours. Is that a mixed metaphor? Well. Either way. That’s all.”

“You’re angry,” Geralt said in confusion. “Why?” His head throbbed, aching furiously, he felt very hot, and he felt like he’d very much lost the thread of the conversation somewhere along the line. Jaskier had said he cared about him. The whole of it felt surreal. He swallowed, hard, forced it past his thick throat.

Jaskier sighed. “I’m only a little angry with you, Geralt,” he said, and waved his hand. “I’m just angry in. In general. I suppose. Now, lie still.”

“I am,” Geralt said, smiling a little with the irony. Jaskier huffed out a laugh and smiled back, the tension in him relaxing somewhat, and Geralt felt foolish for how good that felt, the relief, the knowledge that he’d cheered him, placated him, whatever it was that had relaxed him again, he’d done it.

“You’re right,” Jaskier said, still with that soft smile on his lips. “You’re being very good.” His fingers stroked gently over Geralt’s calf, slid warm up over his knee to his thigh, and he tried his best not to shiver. “I appreciate you not making this difficult for me,” he continued, shifting Geralt’s leg just a little. “Though I have to say, your stoicism is unbelievable. You’re as stolid as a rock. You wouldn’t know I was hurting you at all.”

“It comes with the trade,” Geralt said, surprised just a little, because Jaskier could tell he was hurting him, was aware of it, despite his careful stillness, steeling himself, training his body to endure.

“I know,” Jaskier said, his smile shifting, turning wistful and almost a little—sad, again? That was strange. Geralt didn’t know what to make of it, so he didn’t make anything, and instead stayed carefully still, reclining half on his side, as Jaskier inspected the injury. His fingers were very, very gentle along the edge of the wound as he felt it. It still hurt a little, but really, it was hardly anything. “I, er,” Jaskier said after a moment. “I don’t know what it’s meant to look like, but,” he swallowed.

“Let me see it,” Geralt said, and reached up, covered Jaskier’s hand with his, gently moved it away, blinking his eyes back open, clearing his head with an effort of will. He moved to sit up, to crane his neck to look down at it, and was surprised when Jaskier was there, reaching for him with both hands, bracing him on his own shoulder, holding him up. He even reached up, brushed Geralt’s hair back out of his face for him, gathered it into his hand and pulled it forward over his shoulder, reaching up to brush bits back from Geralt’s face again after.

“Ah, yes,” Jaskier was babbling, “that—that makes a good deal of sense. You’d know better than I; after all, you know your own anatomy and what healing should look like, don’t you?”

“Hmm,” Geralt agreed. He shifted his thigh so he could get a good look, leaned over. The wound was scabbing over already, just as it should, and his leg was bruised around it, the bruises vivid but already yellowing, irritated and red around the scabbing where it was pulling together despite the ugly, ragged edges of the bite, and leaking fresh blood and fluid from where the bandages had tugged away at it, but all in all it looked just like it should, clearly healing. “It’s all right, Jask,” he said. “Looks as it should.”

Jaskier looked at him suspiciously. “You wouldn’t lie to me about that, Geralt, would you?” he asked, eyes narrowing, and Geralt had to laugh despite the way it made his bruised, feverish body ache all through his torso.

“Of course I would,” he said, honestly. “But I’m not lying now.”

Perversely, that statement seemed to relax Jaskier. He laughed and patted Geralt’s leg again. “Well, all right, then,” he said. “I’ll take your word on it.”

Geralt rolled his eyes at him. “Yes, you have my word,” he said.

“Excellent,” Jaskier said briskly. “All right, then, Geralt, if you’ll just let me . . . .” He shifted again, moved out from under Geralt’s side, and helped him slump back down into the blankets. Geralt let him roll him mostly onto his side and fluff up the pillows, turning one over to the cooler, cleaner side and slipping it under his head again, before he returned to the wound. He hesitated a moment, as if he was still nervous and flustered and not sure what to do, then took a deep breath and reached for the salve again, even as Geralt just sighed and relaxed into the pillow, closing his eyes.

Jaskier’s fingers were just as gentle and careful and thorough as they had been the night before, and then he pressed a fresh pad of linen to the wound, wrapped it in fresh bandages. Geralt thought, disjointedly, that perhaps he should have taken on that task himself. Jaskier was going to have to do the burn on his back, and he’d probably need his help for the gash on his side, but he could have tended to that wound on his thigh himself. He would get soft, letting Jaskier look after him like this. Jaskier wouldn’t always be there, after all, and he should rely on himself. It was what a witcher did.

But he couldn’t deny how much better than normal it felt to just relax into it and let someone else tend to his wounds for a while, even while he was still conscious. He let his eyes slip closed again, even as Jaskier tied off the bandage, muttering to himself. “All right, there’s the side to do next,” he said in that low mutter, and Geralt shifted his arm so that he could see it, shifted slightly to give him a good angle. He felt more than heard it as Jaskier took a deep breath, then moved up slightly, scooting up to sit at his hip as he reached for the bandages wrapped tightly around Geralt’s side. His fingers were soft and quick and clever at undoing the bandages, and Geralt tried not to dwell on the intimacy of their positioning, how Jaskier’s chest and hips and sides brushed his as he leaned forward again and again to help unwind the bandages from around his chest. He held himself up and did his best to help, only to have Jaskier scold him and push his hands away again and again. “Good Goddess, Geralt,” he said after a moment, “Just let me do it, all right? All right.” He patted his shoulder and undid the rest of the bandaging, pushing Geralt back down with that hand on his shoulder, surprisingly firm.

Geralt grunted, sighed, and let himself be pushed, closing his eyes and sinking into the pillow as Jaskier carefully laid his hand over the pad of linen against Geralt’s side. He was muttering to himself again, and after a moment got up and must have come back with more hot water and cloths, because he put a very hot, damp cloth over the old bandage on Geralt’s side and left it there for a moment. It felt incredibly good there, warm and radiant and soothing and damp in a way that felt refreshing, despite the pain and itching it brought in the wound, and Geralt sighed pleasurably, kept his eyes closed. He knew what Jaskier was about. He wanted the heat and wet to loosen the bandage so it would disturb the wound less this time. He couldn’t deny he appreciated the consideration. It was strange to be cared for so very carefully, with so much attention offered even the smallest details. He tried to think if he’d ever been looked after so attentively in the past, even by old Nenneke, and came up with nothing, but then, his mind was still fogged by fever, and it was hard to think of much of anything. He let himself drift, just a little, enjoying the warmth and Jaskier’s hand resting just above his hip, and he felt himself sink into a kind of doze and didn’t fight it.

He didn’t even rouse himself when he felt Jaskier tug away the cloth and the bandage, carefully working it loose. He felt it as Jaskier touched his fingers carefully to the wound in Geralt’s side. “Well,” he said, “it’s not too hot, and it doesn’t look red. That’s a good thing, right?”

“Very,” Geralt said, rousing himself enough to give a rueful smile back over his shoulder. “Means it’s not infected.”

“Then . . . that’s good news,” Jaskier said, bit at his bottom lip, and then covered it with more salve and began replacing the bandage, winding it around his chest again.

“It would be hard for infection to take hold anyway,” Geralt said absently. “After the number of potions I took. They’re not for infection specifically, but they make it hard for it to get started. The salve helps with that, too.”

“I don’t think I even want to know why that is,” Jaskier muttered. “It’ll probably make it too disturbing to give you the potions next time if I did.” Geralt had to allow that he might not be wrong. It wasn’t Jaskier being squeamish—most people weren’t accustomed to the idea of consuming something that included hellebore, aconite, or quicksilver, for the very good reason that it would kill them if they did.

“Hmm,” Geralt agreed. He remembered something he’d wanted to mention. “You did a good job,” he said.

“Hmm?” Jaskier asked, and blinked up at him as if in confusion, still working at his side, tying off the last of the bandage. “At what, pray tell?”

“Potions,” Geralt said, feeling a bit embarrassed now for even bringing it up. “You got them all on the first try.”

“I’ve seen you taking that fiery red-gold one before,” Jaskier said and shrugged a little, smiling as if to laugh it off. “And your descriptions were very vivid. I knew you’d been holding out on me with the descriptions of your exploits, Geralt.”

Geralt frowned. “Still,” he said, quietly. “It was well done.”

“Since I didn’t know what else to do, I’m glad of it,” Jaskier said with a shaky little laugh, as if he’d still like to laugh it off but couldn’t, quite. “I was terrified, you know. You looked so—so bloody awful.”

“You know how quickly I heal,” Geralt said, and tried a little smile. He almost admired it, how easily Jaskier admitted to his fear. He didn’t know how to do the same, himself; he didn’t think. It was hard enough to put into words emotions with far lower stakes. “I’m tougher than that, Jaskier.”

Jaskier surprised him by reaching out, pressing the backs of his knuckles against Geralt’s cheek and his jaw. His hand felt very cool against Geralt’s hot, fevered skin, cooled by salve and water. “For which I am most fervently grateful,” he said, with a little hitch in his voice, then he took a deep, shuddering breath and looked away again, back at the bandages in his hands. “I know that,” he said, voice light and bright over the words. “Of course, I know that; I’ve sung of it often enough. You’re terrifically tough, almost unbeatable, impossibly strong.” He pushed gently on Geralt’s shoulder, and Geralt obeyed, rolling back over onto his belly, resting his face on the pillow again, and Jaskier patted his shoulder as if in thanks, or praise. It was strange to be in such a vulnerable position, flat on his belly, his back exposed, and not to feeling the crawling awareness of it, the need to shield himself.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he muttered into the pillow.

“Oh, I’m ridiculous,” Jaskier said with a little laugh. His fingers were already working at the bandage where he’d tied it off near Geralt’s shoulder. “I’m the ridiculous one. I’m sure.”

Geralt grunted, because Jaskier _was_ ridiculous, but that seemed a little unkind to point out, when he was doing all this just to look after him, and he was sure the bard knew that, anyway.

Jaskier was chattering on, anyway, as he usually did, never needing much input from Geralt to keep up his side of the conversation. “I hope you realize that I’m still going to worry about you,” he was saying. “Fearsome as you are. I know I’m the fragile bard who couldn’t hold his own in a fight and you’re the terrifying witcher, a force of nature, but that doesn’t mean I relinquish the right to worry. It doesn’t mean I like to see you in pain, or hurting, you know. In fact, I utterly hate it, all the more.”

“You don’t have to throw all the, the ridiculous praise in just to shield my ego,” Geralt muttered. “I’m not so unbeatable as all that. You know that.”

“If only my singing of it could make it true; I’d never stop,” Jaskier said. “Yes, I do know.” He was being very gentle and careful in the way he unwrapped the bandages, loosening them with his fingers then pulling on them, top and bottom, so that Geralt didn’t have to move, lift up his chest for any unwinding or unwrapping.

“And I don’t need to be buttered up,” Geralt muttered. “My ego isn’t that fragile.”

“I know,” Jaskier said gaily. “You know you’re good. That’s the fun of it. I wouldn’t tease you so, otherwise.” He tousled Geralt’s hair lightly, and Geralt pushed his hand away, shoved his hand back through his hair, not that it helped put it back in order. “If you were less secure, your frustration over it wouldn’t be so amusing.”

“Hmph,” Geralt grunted. He should be good, at his age. Of course, he wouldn’t have reached his age if he hadn’t been good at what he did. “I’m so glad I can amuse you.”

Jaskier laughed. “Oh, endlessly, dear friend,” he said. He picked Geralt’s hair up in his hands and pushed it off his neck and over his shoulder, then tugged away the last of the bandages holding the pad of linen to Geralt’s wound. That he left where it was for a moment, as he got up off the bed and crossed the room again. Geralt realized he must have a pot of water on the fire, belatedly, as Jaskier came back with a freshly hot, wet cloth, and laid it out over his back again so that the wet heat soaked into the bandage. He was holding it there with one hand, the other resting idly on Geralt’s shoulder, stroking down his arm. Geralt shivered, with the heat of the wet cloth and a sudden chill and the tingling awareness of that touch, of the gentle way Jaskier was rubbing his palm in circles over his arm. “Is there truly nothing more I can do for you?” he said after a moment.

“Hmm?” Geralt asked drowsily. “What more? You’ve already done more than enough.”

“Have I, though?” Jaskier asked, and sighed. “I’m not used to being in this position, I suppose,” he said. He traced the shape of Geralt’s muscle downward with one finger, and Geralt shivered again, under the tickling touch. “Everything seemed so straightforward last night.”

“Did it?” Geralt grunted. “I suppose it did. Step one, save the damn stupid witcher’s life . . . .”

Jaskier laughed. “You keep saying you’d have been fine without me, remember, big scary loner?” he said. “Get the potions down you, get you up on Roach, get you back to town, get you taken care of, put you to bed. Just as simple as that. I’m not used to—to being the tender nursemaid.”

“Got a future in it,” Geralt muttered.

“Do you think so?” Jaskier asked softly. He pressed the knuckles and the backs of his fingers to Geralt’s neck, the tender skin at the nape of it, as if he was feeling for his temperature, but then rubbed there gently. “Well, I volunteer, if ever you need me. Though it’s not my usual sort of thing at all. You bring unexpected facets of me out into the light, Geralt. Sleeping in the mud, subsisting off of nothing but air and forest berries and stale bread, and now surgery and nursing. What do you think old Nenneke would think of my technique? Whatever will you inspire in me next?”

“Not blessed silence,” Geralt grunted.

Jaskier laughed, then. “No,” he agreed. “Not that. If ever I’m quiet, then you’ll know something is dreadfully wrong.”

Geralt had to allow he was probably right about that. He didn’t think he’d have the first idea what to do with a quiet Jaskier.

“It would probably be about as unnerving as you starting to chatter,” Jaskier said, his voice bright and airy as he swiped the hot wet cloth up over Geralt’s neck and shoulders, folded it upward, then began tugging the pad of bandages off his back.

Geralt had been ignoring it fairly successfully, but as the linen tugged on the wound, he became uncomfortably aware of it all over again. Like most burns as they began to heal, he was most aware of a horrible grinding, almost painful itch burning in the area of the injury. He flexed his hand against the bed and took a breath, but he couldn’t quite deny the urge to flex his back muscles so that the healing skin and blisters pulled and shifted. It wasn’t as good as scratching, but it let him pretend there was some, any, kind of relief.

“Gods preserve me,” Jaskier said. “That looks rather awful.” He pressed one hand down against Geralt’s neck. “Be still, you.”

“Burns do,” Geralt grunted. “Itch like fuck, too.”

Jaskier gave a little huff of a surprised sounding laugh. “A terrible itch wasn’t what I was imagining, looking at you like that,” he said.

“Hmm,” Geralt answered with an annoyed huff. “Ever had an itch you couldn’t scratch?”

“Yes,” Jaskier said, “and it is, without a doubt, the most agonizing feeling in the world. I would scratch it for you if I could, but it would no doubt just be another agony and set back your recovery.”

“Hmm,” Geralt agreed, but he wasn’t happy about it.

Jaskier patted his shoulder, then said, “Here.” He scratched his fingers down over Geralt’s shoulder, not touching the area of the burn itself, but skating close to it, flaking off dried salve as he did. Geralt sighed in pleasure as it almost, _almost_ , but not quite, eased the real itch. Jaskier had long-ish, well-kept nails, for playing the lute, and that felt better than the wine last night had, almost as good as sex. When Jaskier did the other shoulder and side, too, Geralt couldn’t quite keep back his groan of gratitude. The itching in the burn felt much less angry just for the skin around it having been scratched.

“Did that feel good?” Jaskier asked, sounding pleased.

“Damn, Jaskier,” Geralt groaned. “Yes.”

“Good,” Jaskier said. “I hope the salve will help with that, too, again. It seemed to help with the pain last night. Didn’t it?”

“Yes,” Geralt confirmed, a bit bemused that Jaskier had been able to tell. He hadn’t thought he’d let on so obviously. When had he become so damn easy to read?

“I’m very glad of it,” Jaskier said. “You were showing the pain last night, and if you’re not able to hide it, I don’t even want to imagine the kind of agony you must be in.” He was working as he spoke—Geralt heard the unscrewing of the jar of salve, and the coolness of it touched his blistered, healing skin in another moment.

Geralt frowned into his pillow. He had not been very aware of himself the night before, but he hadn’t meant to be so damn obvious. His weakness was clearly the reason Jaskier was so attentive, so _worried_ today. He usually tried not to let on, tried not to make it obvious, when he hurt, when he was in pain. Jaskier wasn’t supposed to be able to tell. He hadn’t wanted to worry him so. He gave a noncommittal sound, feeling another twinge of guilt for leaning on Jaskier as much as he had already. Not to mention he’d probably ruined his clothes with his blood. He would have to do better on that front, that was clear.

He just wasn’t certain how to do that. He’d already let himself be far—far weaker and more open about his injuries than he usually did, and here he was, fevered and weak and sleeping off the side-effects of excessive potion consumption in bed. He sighed and closed his eyes against his arm again, laying his head down and just letting Jaskier finish spreading the cooling, soothing thickness of the creamy thick salve over his wound. It tingled and stung, but then it brought welcome relief with it.

“Remember to wash your hands afterward,” Geralt managed to mutter.

He heard Jaskier give a pleased little laugh and he murmured, “Yes, I remember.” And then he was finished with the salve, getting up again. Geralt heard the splash of water, the sounds of him drying his hands, then he was back with what had to be the fresh linen, pressing a new pad of it to the burn wound, then beginning to wrap new bandaging around it to hold it in place. He didn’t have Geralt move this time—apparently he’d figured out how to wrap his shoulder and chest more quickly and efficiently, because Geralt barely had to prop himself up, once or twice, and then Jaskier was tying the bandage neatly off at his shoulder again. “There,” he said, and picked up Geralt’s bandaged hand, this time, pulling it into his lap. “Ah,” he murmured. “This has bled through.”

“I keep forgetting and trying to use it,” Geralt admitted.

“I suppose I can’t blame you,” Jaskier said with a smile at him. He used the still warm cloth again, cradling his palm in its warmth and dampness, even as he began to unwind the bandages. “I’d more than likely do the same.” He tugged very lightly on the bandages as he unwrapped them, loosening them carefully. “This is just a bad scrape, but I daresay it’s the most frustrating injury of the whole lot.”

“Yeah,” Geralt said, surprised how well Jaskier understood. But he supposed he shouldn’t be. Jaskier’s profession, the music that was so clearly his passion in life, also required the use of his hands. And he was always humming, tapping out tunes or rhythms or fingerings on tables or chairs or his thighs. An injured hand would clearly drive him up the wall just as surely as it was doing Geralt.

“Well, I’m sorry for that,” Jaskier said. “It’s so damnably easy to scrape up one’s hands, isn’t it?” He was undoing bandages, still, as he talked. “I’m surprised you don’t rip them up more, to be quite honest with you. How many gauntlets do you go through a year?”

“More than I’d like,” Geralt admitted. The thing of it was that the softer leather that had to go over the fingers, to keep them flexible enough to grip his sword with the grip he preferred, always tore through first and easiest.

“I can imagine,” Jaskier said with a bit of a laugh. “Speaking of which, any idea what we’re going to do about your armor? I doubt there’s an armorer in town. But it was pretty badly torn to shreds.”

“Hope I don’t get in a serious fight before I can get it repaired,” Geralt said. He would have shrugged, but his back had just stopped bothering him, and his hand was being held carefully in Jaskier’s grip. “We’ll be in Novigrad in another few weeks.”

“But do you have the coin to pay an armorer in Novigrad?” Jaskier asked.

“I should, if they don’t try to stint me on this job,” Geralt sighed.

“I’ll keep an eye on them, then,” Jaskier promised, and Geralt thought about protesting that he could certainly handle his own financial matters, but it probably wouldn’t hurt to have Jaskier’s sharp eye on the mayor either, when it came to getting paid, so he held his tongue. Before long, Jaskier was off again, chattering away about what songs he should play that night. Geralt didn’t have much to say about that, so he simply stayed quiet and listened to the sound of Jaskier’s voice. He wasn’t sure when it had become comforting rather than irritating, all that talking, but now it almost soothed his nerves rather than grating on them. He closed his eyes and listened to Jaskier talk as he cleaned the wound in his hand again, bathed it carefully, salved it, and rebandaged it. Only after Jaskier tied it off again did Geralt open his eyes again and look up at Jaskier to see him make a triumphant, expansive gesture. “Finished!” he said. He leaned forward, adjusted Geralt’s pillows again, then slid off the bed with one last lingering touch to his shoulder that Geralt tried not to fixate on or make more of than it deserved. “I’ll be heading downstairs to play for the supper crowd before long,” he told Geralt, picking up his lute and starting to tune it, restring it. “You’ll be all right up here, though? On your own?”

“Jaskier,” Geralt said, unable to keep the fondness out of his tone this time, and waited until the bard looked up at him. “I’m always all right on my own. I’m used to it.”

Jaskier bit his lip and looked down again. “Right,” he said. “Of course. Silly me. We’d just discussed this and everything, hadn’t we? I know, I know, you can take care of yourself. You always do.”

“I always do when I have to,” Geralt said. “You’ve taken good care of me instead, though, this past day or so.”

“Have I?” Jaskier asked, wrapping new string around one of the pegs of his lute. He adjusted it, moved onto the next. He smiled over at Geralt a little, and Geralt relaxed, because that smile had relaxed the tightness around Jaskier’s eyes, too, and his shoulders had gone back to their looseness from before, dropping down from around his ears. “I’m glad to hear it,” Jaskier said, and his smile lingered.

“I’ll go soft, with you around to wait on me like this,” Geralt said.

Jaskier laughed. “Soft? You? The terrifying witcher, the White Wolf of Rivia? Never. Perish the thought. A single night, even an entire _week_ of rest could never make you soft.” He strummed his fingers across the lute’s strings, made a face, and adjusted the tuning again.

“That better not be going in a song,” Geralt told him.

That really made Jaskier laugh, which made Geralt smile, warm with pride that he could be funny enough to make Jaskier of all people laugh like that. “Oh, no,” Jaskier said. “I wouldn’t dare. You’d never trust me enough to let your guard down around me again.” He winked at him, smiled at him, rather softly, Geralt thought. “And that is worth more to me than rubies,” he said.

Oh, come on, fuck, Geralt thought, but Jaskier was kind-hearted to say so, joking or not. Too kind-hearted to be saddled with him as a friend, but Geralt was greedy, greedy enough to soak it up rather than push him away, as he knew he should. He had done his best, over the years, at any rate, and with no effect. Jaskier was too persistent. But really, it was Geralt who reaped all the benefits. Jaskier just got a lot of danger and unpleasantness in exchange. Still, it didn’t seem to scare him off. In all truth, Jaskier didn’t seem to mind it in the least.

Instead of saying any of what he could have said, because he didn’t have the first idea how he might have said any of it, Geralt just raised his eyebrows at him. “Really,” he said. “This is worth that much to you? Cleaning up after me—wiping down my sweat, holding me while I piss, wiping my arse? If that’s true, you really should have become a nursemaid.”

“I’m not putting it in any ballads any time soon, no,” Jaskier said. “The fact that you have bodily functions just like the rest of us will just be for the two of us to know.” He strummed his lute, gave a little trill on the strings. “Did you know you talk a great deal in your sleep when you’re ill?”

“So I’ve been told,” Geralt mumbled.

“You talk to Roach,” Jaskier said, with a smile. “You asked her if the grass was any good and if it tasted better when there were violets. You asked me to get her a blanket because it was cold. And you told her to take a bath, at one point.”

“That I . . . didn’t know,” Geralt allowed, and wondered if he were blushing. He didn’t, often, and his face felt too hot from fever already to really tell. At least he was probably so hot it didn’t make any difference. Talking to Roach didn’t usually embarrass him, but somehow this was a bit more revealing than it normally felt. Especially since he didn’t have any memory of saying any of it.

“Well, you do,” Jaskier said, but at least he didn’t sound as if he were laughing at him, there was the same fond, sweet brightness that he had been using to speak with Geralt earlier in the day in his voice and nothing more. Geralt wanted to ask him why, why he seemed so fond of Geralt, why he was so kind to him, but he was afraid he wasn’t ready for the answer, that it might change things between them. That he might not like it. Jaskier bent over his lute, adjusted his fingers on the strings now, playing something now, soft and light, “You also said a great deal that didn’t make any sense at all, but I suppose that’s only to be expected,” he added.

“People who are feverish generally do,” Geralt said, and it came out gruffly.

“Don’t worry,” Jaskier said, smiling, still strumming his fingers against the lute’s strings. “I won’t tell anyone. I am sworn to eternal secrecy.”

Geralt couldn’t quite keep back a laugh at that. “I wouldn’t want to make you swear to any vow you couldn’t keep,” Geralt said, unable to keep himself from smiling again, either.

Jaskier gave a theatrical gasp, stopped playing to throw his hand to his chest. “Cut to the quick,” he said. “You don’t pull your punches, Geralt, as well I know. Cruel, that’s what you are. Cruel. As if I couldn’t keep such a promise.”

“You just like to talk, Jask,” Geralt told him, still smiling. “It’s not an insult.”

Jaskier pouted. “I keep your secrets,” he said. “I do. I’ve never told anyone about—well, most of it, to be honest. Only the good parts. I’ve never told anyone anything that was important. Well, if I knew it was. Have I?”

Geralt reflected on that and realized with a sense of shock how much carefully guarded—or usually carefully guarded—personal information he’d divulged to Jaskier over the years. Somehow, instinctively, without really even knowing it himself, he’d felt safe leaving it in Jaskier’s keeping, knowing that the bard, talkative and gregarious and generous as he was, would never betray his confidence knowingly. Jaskier had been right; the times he’d been indiscreet had all been when he hadn’t realized the importance of the information to Geralt. “Hmm,” Geralt allowed, discomfited by the realization.

But why? Why did it make him feel so uncomfortable? Because it had to do with being a witcher, most of the information he’d let on to Jaskier about? And thus affected others than himself, thus they were not his secrets, solely, to tell? But he knew Jaskier was trustworthy. He’d trusted Jaskier to tend his wounds when he probably wouldn’t even have trusted half the men he’d trained with, and not because the bard was harmless, because Geralt knew better than most people that he wasn’t, whether he was a fighter or not. It wasn’t that. Maybe it should have been, maybe that would have reflected better on him, if it was concern for the secrets of the witchers that bothered him so, but it wasn’t. Was it because he hardly ever did it? But that was true of just about everything about Jaskier, and what he let him do—let him trail along after him, let him put himself in danger. Let him tease and joke with him, let him invade his space and touch him, let him sing about him, let him wash his hair, apparently, let him share his life as well as his campfire, even, a few times when Jaskier had been too weary and footsore to keep going, or ill, or hurt, let him ride behind him on Roach, or, when he was very ill or very hurt, held him in front of him on the horse. Jaskier simply wasn’t like anyone else in his life had ever been. He was too singular himself for that, Geralt supposed. He certainly was earning the international reputation to prove it.

So why the discomfort? Because it left him vulnerable to the other man? More vulnerable than lying naked and insensible in front of him, or letting him wash his hair for him, or Jaskier helping him to relieve himself? When he thought of it that way, it seemed faintly ridiculous. Of course he had been vulnerable to Jaskier. Of course he trusted him.

He was afraid Jaskier would hurt him, yes. He knew that, now that he turned his mind to it, looked at it full on. It was cowardly and it was stupid—but it wasn’t as if hiding anything from the other man would help that now, was it? If Jaskier was to hurt him, it would happen whether or not Geralt spilled every secret he knew at his feet like glittering jewels from a bag of treasure for the bard’s perusal, or not. The looseness of his tongue—or not—wouldn’t make much difference. Getting close to people meant getting hurt. His life wasn’t meant for it. Geralt knew that well, and he’d let it happen anyway. That was the inevitable result. Geralt sighed at himself, because he had been a fool. But that wasn’t Jaskier’s fault.

“You haven’t,” he confirmed, because Jaskier deserved that much from him, at least.

“See?” Jaskier said, sounding satisfied with that. “So there’s no need for you to worry.” He smiled across the room at him. “You can trust me with anything you might wish to tell me, or say, or feverishly mumble.”

“Hmm,” Geralt said. It was an . . . unnerving thought. A strange thought. That he could trust the talkative, footloose, trouble magnet that was the bard, and that, in fact, he already had, with a great deal. His mind stuck on the realization of how much of himself he’d already laid open at Jaskier’s feet, handed over for his keeping to be as careful or as careless with it as he willed. Fuck, he’d been a fool, more than he’d even realized before. He’d dreamed of Renfri, he remembered suddenly. Had that been why? Had it been a warning not to be such a fool a second time? Not to let himself trust, not to let himself _care_ , not to _get involved_ in this bright chattering peacock of a man’s already eventful life?

If so, it had come a little damn late, hadn’t it?

Jaskier was humming to himself now, strumming the lute’s strings, apparently now happy with its tone. He got up and went over to the packs in the corner of the room. Geralt rolled carefully onto his side, facing away from Jaskier, careful of his wounded back, and faced the wall of the room, taking a deep, careful breath and blowing it out again, equally carefully. He didn’t want to bother Jaskier, most of all. He also didn’t want to watch him undress and change his clothes, particularly. He wondered if he should pay him back for the doublet he’d no doubt ruined with his blood the night before—even Jaskier’s shirt had been stained with it. But he had the idea that Jaskier would be none too pleased with him if he offered to reimburse him for it. Jaskier was still humming, and Geralt could hear it as he began to strip his clothes off. They didn’t have much modesty in front of each other, these days—and why should they, considering? They’d seen each other naked plenty of times before. He knew that Jaskier was deceptively slim, stronger than he looked, how much chest hair he had, the line of his back and shoulders and the proportions of his lovely arse, even the enticing size and shape of his cock; all things he shouldn’t have been noticing.

It would have been easier if he had _liked_ Jaskier a little less, and that was the truth of it.

And on a normal day, Geralt could have shrugged it off, or at least gone off on his own, or gone to rub down Roach and tell her his troubles, or gone to hunt for supper, or any number of things. Now, he was stuck there, and felt discomfited and open and unpleasantly vulnerable. He took a breath, took another breath. He closed his good hand around his medallion and made himself begin to meditate. Little as he wanted to, just then. But his emotions were disordered, not helped along by his ill, feverish state, and he was in dire need of ordering them out, and he knew that any one of his teachers would have told him to meditate now. And remember who he was, and what he was for, and the Path, and how his life worked.

He struggled to reach the mental equilibrium and peace required for meditation, but he did get there, eventually, enough that when Jaskier’s hand brushed against his better shoulder before it settled there, gently, it startled him out of his trance. “No, no, don’t move,” Jaskier said. “You’ll hurt yourself, shh.” He sat down on the edge of the bed again, resting his hand on Geralt’s shoulder, still. “I didn’t mean to startle you, forgive me. I just wanted to mention that I’m going out, now. You’ll be all right?”

“Hmm,” Geralt said, an acknowledgment and an agreement chiefly because there was no other option. He lifted his head, twisted it back to look at the other man. The room was dim, but it seemed to him that Jaskier was now fully dressed. “How long has it been?”

“You fell asleep again, hmm?” Jaskier said. “About an hour. Just go back to sleep. I’m sorry to have woken you.”

“You’re going to play for the evening?” Geralt said, trying to place the time and where he was, and was relieved when Jaskier nodded. He hadn’t lost track of things entirely, then.

“And you should just sleep and try to heal,” Jaskier said, reaching out and brushing hair back from Geralt’s brow, trailing his fingers gently over his forehead. “You’re a little less hot, now. I hope your fever doesn’t spike so high again.”

“It probably will,” Geralt told him, honest, and Jaskier smiled, a gently rueful crooked little twist of his mouth.

“Just a regular ray of sunshine, aren’t you, Geralt?” he said. He bit his lip, as if hesitating, then leaned forward and kissed his forehead again, as he’d done more than once the night before. Geralt froze, couldn’t help it—couldn’t help but notice the way Jaskier closed his eyes before his lips touched Geralt’s skin, the way his heart sped up and his skin prickled with sweat. His lips were a little chapped, but mostly soft and warm and a bit dizzying. Geralt had to remind himself to take a breath, even as Jaskier pulled away and smiled at him. His cheeks were a touch flushed, Geralt made the mental note before he really realized it. “Well,” Jaskier said, standing, and reaching for his lute in its case. “I’m off. Wish me luck, eh?”

Geralt took a breath. “Play well, Jaskier,” he said, finally.

Jaskier’s answering smile was sunny, bright enough that it lit the small dim room to midday, and he answered Geralt with a flourishing bow. “Your wish is my command,” he said. “And you—” Was it Geralt’s imagination, how his eyes softened? “Rest, won’t you? Just keep getting better. That’s all I ask.” He gestured vaguely at the room. “I brewed you some more of that medicinal tea. It’s on the table beside you, along with the rest of the water jug. I’ll return with supper.” He gave Geralt a loose, casual salute of farewell and ducked out of the room, closing the door behind him.

Geralt stared up at the ceiling. He took a breath, and another one. He blew that one out, long and slow. He thought about how his forehead was still tingling where Jaskier had kissed him, or at least he felt like it was.

He thought about how long it had been since the last time he was in love. Or what he’d thought was love, when he’d been young and stupid. Or. Anyway. Since he’d felt this trembling want and aching sweetness and desire in his chest, felt like it would spill out of his lips every time he opened his mouth, but had no idea what to say. Since he’d hurt inside with softness and desire and wanting to do whatever he could to make another person happy, or—or just _wanted,_ wanted and wanted and wanted something he could never actually have.

“Fuck,” he said, quietly and vehemently, to the ceiling. He rolled over face down and pulled the pillow over his head. It didn’t help. “You’re an idiot,” he told himself. “You’re the biggest fucking fool who ever lived.”

Hearing the words out loud did not help either. What a surprise. Geralt formed a fist and punched the pillow, not nearly as hard as he could have, even injured and ill as he was, even though he knew he was being stupid and childish. He growled at himself anyway. If he was going to act like a stupid kid who had never learned better and get infatuated with the first pretty bard who looked at him or gave him the time of day, who bothered to call him friend, act like some stupid adolescent boy and think about damned _love_ , of all things, why not let himself vent his emotions as best he knew how? Damn it all to hell, he’d thought he’d learned better by now.

Geralt pulled the pillow off his head and put his head down on it again, pressed his face down into it. So, yes, he thought. All right. Fine. He cared a great deal for Jaskier, and he was interested in him, and for more than just sex. Not to mention that he thought that very possibly one roll between the sheets with Jaskier would not be enough to satisfy this aching hunger within him. He’d want it again, and again, and again, storing up the bard’s touches and his _interest_. He might never stop wanting it, even after he had it, which was faintly terrifying. He reveled in every gentle touch Jaskier gave him and ached and ached for more. He even loved listening to him talk, fuck it all, and fuck Geralt. Jaskier made him laugh, and smile, and forget that he wasn’t meant for it, wasn’t meant for any of this. He felt like such a fool. And mooning after him now, of all times, just because Jaskier had been so kind to him—it was pathetic. He felt pathetic. The mutant freak so unused to normal human contact he turned what was merely kindness into love and obsessed over the famous bard who called him his friend. It was a horrible, humiliating cliché, like something out of one of Jaskier’s ballads, and it made him feel pathetic, pitiable, in the way he hated most. Geralt sighed and blinked his hot eyelids against the cool cloth of the pillow, feeling it against the heat of his fevered skin, his hot face, swallowed hard against the ache in his throat and building in his temples.

So, what was he going to do about it? He couldn’t see how he was going to do anything. Stay quiet, try his hardest to act as he normally did, and hope that things stayed as they were and had been between them, because he couldn’t hope for anything better. Jaskier’s friendship was more than enough. What more could Geralt ask for? He still couldn’t see how someone like him could even ask for that much, if he was honest. The only thing that had changed was Geralt’s awareness of his own foolishness, and that was the only thing that could change. He would leave it at that. What else could he do?

It would have been a relief to get back to sleep, but of course now sleep was escaping him, despite the heat of the fever and how manifestly ill he felt. Geralt lay there wakeful for long minutes, rolled carefully onto his side and back again and stared at the ceiling until his eyes were burning with strain and tight with the heat of his fever, then gave up and pushed himself up on one side. His eyes burned, and he felt hot, like he was baking under a desert sun. The room wavered and slid around him, even when he blinked his eyes more than once. Geralt sighed and rolled over until the found the table with his hands, steadying himself with both hands against the edge of the wood, then reaching for the cup of tea Jaskier had left for him, half finding it by the fresh green scent of herbs.

He was still clumsy enough that he nearly spilled it, and cursed to himself, but finally got the cooled liquid to his mouth and took deep, gulping swallows of it. The clean, fresh, bracing herbal scent was somehow cooling on his tongue, down his throat, and cleared his head somewhat. Geralt rubbed his better hand along his forehead, against his temple, and took a breath, then finished the rest of the tea, pushed the mug away, and lay back in the bed, carefully on his side.

He was frustrated with himself for continuing to dwell on the truth of his feelings for Jaskier—whatever they were, that he wanted him, wanted to be with him, that aching, quietly insistent longing that didn’t seem to want to leave him alone, now that he’d looked it in the face. He wished he’d never realized such a pointless thing. It wasn’t as if it changed anything. Thinking about anything else would be preferable. After all, where would dwelling on it get him? Jaskier would probably be willing to sleep with him—once, or maybe twice, maybe even a few times. Geralt wasn’t entirely oblivious; he’d seen Jaskier eyeing him once or twice, and he was fairly certain the bard was intrigued by the size of his cock, but what would that cost him? Jaskier was—he was—he was his friend. Geralt didn’t have so many that he’d waste what they had on simple physical gratification. After all, Jaskier’s friendship was gift enough. He couldn’t imagine him offering any more than that. He didn’t want to lose him, didn’t want things to change between them, and in his experience, sex did that.

In this position he could see their packs against the wall, Jaskier’s notebook on the table, with a few other scattered sheets of notes—where he’d found the paper Geralt had _no_ idea—the banked embers of the hearth. There was some laundry drying over a chair, and Jaskier had left a bowl of water on the seat of it. There was linen stacked up beside it on another chair, quite a large stack of it. It looked as if Jaskier had prepared with enough bandages to keep changing Geralt’s dressings for the entire week, if he needed it. Not that he would. Geralt still smiled a little, to see it there. It was good of Jaskier, to worry so. What they would do with that if he didn’t use it all, he had no idea—surely Jaskier wouldn’t have much use for it—but they could take care of that later.

It had surprised him, how patient with him Jaskier had seemed prepared to be. Patience wasn’t really a quality he associated with the bard. It made something in his chest feel tender and a little bit aching, a little bit soft, to think of it, of Jaskier putting in so much effort to look after _him_ , but after all, that was how he’d gotten himself into this mess, wasn’t it? Reading into the things Jaskier did for him, said to him. The bard was outgoing and gregarious by nature, throwing himself into living his life every moment of every day, the polar opposite of Geralt, who even if he tried was certain he couldn’t live so lightly. He was obsessing over small things, gestures that surely meant nothing except an expression of Jaskier’s generous spirit and friendly kindness. He’d always known the bard had a good heart, even when he was being irritating and getting rotten produce thrown at his head. His being kind to Geralt, too, shouldn’t come as any surprise. And if Geralt was so unfamiliar with the concept, unused to kindness, if it struck him to the core and left him shaking and reeling, well, that was his problem, not Jaskier’s. Out of the two of them, Jaskier was the normal one. Surely. The one used to giving and receiving affection and friendship and caring, definitely.

Well, luckily, Geralt had time to come to terms with his own stupid emotions, now. He shouldn’t waste it. Time to come to terms with his realization of his infatuation with his—with his friend, and to let himself feel it, and put it behind him, bury it deep where it belonged, so that he could act normally with the other man when he came back. Maybe, if Geralt was lucky, if he ignored it long enough, his wanting would go away, revert to the easiness of the physical, which he knew how to want, and the quietly warm glow of the friendship, which he barely knew how to offer Jaskier already. The bard was always throwing him off balance somehow, leaving him confused, off-kilter, questioning. It was one of his most irritating, most attractive qualities. Somewhere along the line Geralt had stopped resenting it, and even though it still irritated him, mightily some days, part of him had come to crave it, the way Jaskier would surprise him with the things he said or did, the way he undercut his expectations and kept him on his toes. And made him laugh. Even when Geralt didn’t show it. Jaskier made him smile more than he had in years. In some ways, Geralt supposed, he wasn’t surprised that something in his soul yearned after that light, laughing brightness, everything he wasn’t. And he’d always been a fool for people who could surprise him, who would stand up to him, who would get in his face and who made him like it. He scrubbed his hand over his face and turned in toward the pillow again.

But the realization that Jaskier made him feel safe—that had really shaken him. Very few things in his life made Geralt feel safe, really safe. Very few things in his life ever made him feel as safe and warm and cared for as he had the past day and night. He didn’t think he could even remember the last time, the last time someone had cared for him and instead of feeling uncomfortable with it, instead of it making his skin crawl and making him want to get back on his feet and out of there as soon as possible, or making him feel stupid and embarrassed and ashamed, he felt as if he wanted to melt into it, let himself lie there and fall into the softness Jaskier had offered him and stay as long as he could. It made him feel stupid, and raw, and vulnerable, because he knew—he knew he couldn’t have this for long, no matter how good it felt. Normally that wasn’t a problem; he didn’t feel tempted to hold onto it. But Jaskier was—he was always there, always present, a presence Geralt never seemed to shake for good. A strange, inconstant constant, like a lodestone that didn’t always point north, or something like that. Geralt didn’t need pity, would have hated it if Jaskier had offered it, would be counting the days until he was well enough to ride away, but Jaskier hadn’t seemed to pity him, even when he seemed shocked and saddened and upset hadn’t looked at him with that stare of fear and pity and revulsion mixed that Geralt had become so used to, had only offered him caring and care and a kind of patient amusement and fondness that brought him in on every joke, somehow, even when he didn’t quite know what it was, himself. Even when he went to Nenneke, her fussing and lectures always made Geralt want to get well again as soon as possible, the quiet surroundings of the Temple of Melitele grating on him like sand in his boots. But this had been different, this had made him feel safe and at peace in a way he only rarely did, mostly when he was alone on Roach with a full belly on a good clear day, and everything in his life seemed clear and straightforward, and he didn’t want to leave, he didn’t want to run, far from it; he wanted to hold that quiet glow of contentment and the feeling of being cared for to his chest, close against his heart, as long as he could. And that was maybe the most foolish part of all of it. The most pathetic thing in it all. He was such a fucking fool.

Geralt squeezed the pillow until it nearly burst and pressed his face down into it, trying to get back to sleep. He would have dearly loved to get back to sleep. But his fever burned and his head pounded and his cheeks and forehead felt hot and sore and cooked against the fabric of the pillow. From downstairs, he could hear the first strains of music, and, indistinctly, Jaskier’s strong tenor voice lifted in song. That was _not_ going to make it easier to sleep, that was for certain. Geralt sighed and turned his head to the side, let his cheek rest against the pillow, and let himself listen to Jaskier’s music, closing his eyes and letting it almost, maybe, perhaps, soothe him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to [Mikkeneko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mikkeneko/pseuds/Mikkeneko)'s comment on An Incomplete Happiness for the idea of what Jaskier's next song might be about! I loved it so much and thought it was so perfect that I had to include it in this one.

At some point, he fell into a daze, not really asleep, but relaxed enough, still enough, that it almost didn’t matter. The constant heat and pressure in his head had relaxed enough to let him rest, and if he didn’t move or open his eyes, it was almost as if his head didn’t pound terribly. Even the constant chills had eased, and he found himself taking deep, slow, easy breaths, found himself matching them to the slow, wistful, even tempo of whatever it was Jaskier was singing that he could barely hear up here. He was fairly certain the innkeeper had asked Jaskier for drinking songs, and this no doubt did not fit that bill, but, well, Jaskier had been singing bawdy songs and drinking songs all night, so maybe he supposed his audience was in their cups enough for this one. At any rate, it was a good rhythm, soft, soothing, and slow, to match his breathing to, and something about that made Geralt feel—good, soft and easy and relaxed, and he steadfastly refused to examine that in more detail, because then he’d be obliged to stop himself, most likely. And he didn’t want to.

He must have fallen asleep at some point, listening to that soft, wistful tune, after all, because when he woke up, Jaskier was sitting beside him, smelling of woodsmoke from the fire and ale and the flowery-woody smell of the scent he liked to wear, like roses and ivy and cedar and a bit of exotic spice, and a bit of sweat, and very much of himself, and his fingers were cool in Geralt’s hair. He was stroking it gently, rubbing his fingers along his scalp, massaging against his temples, and Geralt sighed in pleasure, blew out his breath and didn’t bother to open his eyes again. Maybe he could go back to sleep. He would like that. That would be weak of him, craven, no doubt. But Jaskier’s fingers felt so good in his hair, so cool against his forehead and his cheek, like cool water over his scalp and down the back of his neck. He didn’t want to pull away. He didn’t want that soft, gentle touch to end.

“There you are,” Jaskier said, softly. He kept stroking Geralt’s hair, behind his ears, over his temples. “Decided to follow my advice, did you? Got some sleep?”

Geralt nodded, sighed, and forced his eyes open. The room swam around him, cast in shadow now. It must have been late. There was a candle on the table behind Jaskier, and his face was thrown into relief, looking pale in the dim light. The fire had been built up again, and the room smelled lovely, like food, roasted meat and vegetables. Geralt’s stomach growled. Jaskier smiled at him, brushed his knuckles and backs of his fingers down over Geralt’s cheek, along his jaw, and down his neck, and Geralt sighed again, nearly followed that touch with his head and leaned into it, before he stopped himself. He was awake now, after all. He had some self-control.

“I suppose I did,” he said, and he was loose and relaxed enough, still, that his surprise made his way into his voice. He usually never fell asleep so easily. Jaskier smiled a little more softly, a little more widely, and brushed unruly, sweat-stiff hair back out of Geralt’s face.

“If you weren’t, you were doing an excellent impression,” Jaskier said, and Geralt couldn’t help but smile.

“I’m not that good an actor, lark,” he admitted.

Jaskier grinned. “Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “You do have your moments.”

“Hmm,” Geralt said, then, “How did it go downstairs?”

“No one threw fruit at me,” Jaskier said cheerfully. “Might I interest you in some supper?”

“I could eat,” Geralt allowed carefully, not wanting to let on how his stomach was turning over itself with hunger at the smell of food.

“I was hoping you’d say that,” Jaskier said. “Since I brought you some, all the way up here, and all.” Geralt pushed himself upward with a groan that he managed to cut off into a grunt, only to find Jaskier’s hands firm on his shoulders again. “Ah-ah-ah,” he said. “Now, you’re going to lie back and be still this time, for a while, and then we’ll prop you up, all right?”

“Jaskier,” Geralt said with a sigh, “I’m no invalid.” But he let Jaskier push him back down on his side, all the same.

“I know you’re not,” the other man said, with a little smile, “but humor me, won’t you?”

“That seems to be all I’m doing these days,” Geralt said, smiling himself despite himself. The plan to keep himself carefully distant from Jaskier and stay the same as always seemed to be failing horrendously. He’d get back to it tomorrow, be strict with himself then, Geralt told himself.

“Ah, yes, because I’m the only one who wants you to get better quickly, with rest and comfort, apparently,” Jaskier said waspishly. He was standing, now, and making short work of pushing the table over until it was right up against the bed, shifting it over, then came to fluff up the pillows behind Geralt again. He rolled up a blanket, pushed it behind his back, then carefully stacked them so that he could lean back and still not press the area of the burn on his back too hard against anything. Geralt sighed at him, partly because the way Jaskier leaned forward over him, pressing their bodies together, brushing his chest with his shoulders, was distracting, made Geralt want to wrap his arms around the heat and slenderness of him, follow his hips with his hands, and press his face to his chest to listen to the rapid beat of his quick human heart. And he definitely, _definitely_ couldn’t do that.

“I don’t need to be coddled,” he told him.

“Of course, you don’t,” Jaskier said, and smiled at him, brightly, then reached out, his face softening, and trailed his fingers down Geralt’s jaw, a gentle tingle of warmth that made Geralt go abruptly hot all over. “I know you don’t. But I want to look after you, anyway. Which is why I call it humoring me, you see? There.” He put a bowl and a plate of bread firmly in front of Geralt, and Geralt found that he was angled in such a way that he could easily rest both arms on the table and eat without making a mess of the bed, even with only one useful hand, even with his head aching and swimming and his eyes unfocused against the pounding ache in his head and the painful tightness of his skin.

“Ah,” he said. Jaskier just smiled and pushed the food toward him a little more.

Tonight, it was some kind of beet soup, rich with cream, and a spiced, roasted partridge with a root vegetable relish of pickles, with a sorrel sauce, and that helping of bread with sweet butter. “Is this inn known for its food or something?” Geralt asked, blearily, staring at the beet soup. It smelled enticing.

“I think the innkeep would like it to be,” Jaskier said, with a smile, sitting down across from him and pouring a mugful of beer from the pitcher also on the table, which he held out to Geralt. “Thus one of the benefits of my humble self. Ply me with the finest food the place can offer, and perhaps I’ll speak of nothing else when we get to Novigrad, eh?”

“Hmm,” Geralt agreed. It wasn’t the worst idea on the innkeeper’s part, taking advantage of his self-proclaimed famous guest. He took the mug of beer from Jaskier and gave it a glance, then took a swallow. It was good beer, too. “You should,” he offered. “It is good.”

Jaskier frowned. “I . . . may,” he said. Geralt noticed that he had his own plate of food this time, substantial enough, though it was noticeably smaller than what he’d offered Geralt. “I haven’t yet decided how much of a grudge to hold over his treatment of you. The day we came in you were so very obviously wounded—I mean, you nearly passed out on his floor, and he wanted to toss you out in the rain! Melitele’s tits, but the man is a cold fish.”

“Jaskier,” Geralt said, and he waited until the other man was looking at him. He waited a beat, then said, “It doesn’t make the food any less good,” and dug in.

It _was_ good, too. Even Jaskier making a high-pitched, offended noise and spluttering at him couldn’t distract him. He was too hungry, and the food tasted too good not to focus on it. Good food was something of a rarity in his life, and Geralt was determined to enjoy it while he had it. The earthy sweetness of the beets and the smooth richness of the cream contrasted with the tanginess of whatever else was in the soup, beet pickles and vinegar, most likely, and it had been made with a beef broth, on top of it. There was a healthy amount of cabbage and chunks of beet in the soup to offer it some body. Geralt ate eagerly, even as Jaskier said, hotly, “He was _rude_ to you, Geralt, he called you a—he said untoward things about you, and I for one don’t see where he gets off, considering how badly hurt you were taking care of this damn village’s little basilisk problem. The very _least_ they could do was to show some gratitude; I mean, bloody hell, what would have happened to this village when that nest of little baby basilisks grew up if you hadn’t shown up when you did?”

“The villagers would have died,” Geralt said. “Or many of them would have. Those who survived would likely flee. The village would probably be abandoned.” He’d seen it happen so many times before. “And I am a mutant, Jaskier,” he added more gently, after another spoonful of delicious soup. “An inhuman freak. I am all those things I am sure he called me.”

“I know you’re a mutant,” Jaskier said, “and I know you’re not precisely human. But, Geralt—Geralt, I mean this part, look at me.” He reached out, laid a hand on Geralt’s wrist, and it was so unexpected Geralt did look at him, with some surprise. Jaskier’s eyes were wide and dark in the candlelight, their blueness obscured by the dim lighting of the room, and his face looked very serious. “That doesn’t mean he, or anyone, should get a pass to treat you as if you’re worth less than any other man,” Jaskier said, and his voice was firm, surprisingly so, implacable and steely in a way it was almost hard to imagine from the bard, or would have been, if he hadn’t been hearing it firsthand. “You’d be the first to argue that a rusalka or a dryad or a night spirit or a mecopteran deserved to live unmolested and in peace as long as that creature had left the rest of us unmolested and in peace. Why should you be any different?”

“Leave off, Jaskier,” Geralt said with a sigh, tugging his hand away, and, sighing, Jaskier let him go. “I’m not exactly leaving this fellow in peace, am I?”

“So—what,” Jaskier said, “so you deserve to be summarily tossed out on your arse, from a room you bloody paid for, I might add, because you inflicted yourself unduly on the innkeeper’s notice? He didn’t object to your money when you paid, now did he? Which he should have done, if this was going to be his position. Well, pardon me, but fuck that.” When Geralt looked up at him again, just for a moment, he noticed that the bard’s cheeks were very flushed, and his breath coming harder. Jaskier’s heart was beating awfully quickly.

“It doesn’t matter what I deserve,” Geralt sighed, turning his face back down toward his soup. “What matters is how it will be. Don’t you see that?”

Jaskier crossed his arms across his chest and sat mulishly back in his chair. “Yes, certainly, it _will_ be that way,” he said, “if no one ever takes any steps to change it. Starting with you.”

“Me?” Geralt asked, and thought back to Blaviken. His stomach twisted, and he felt his shoulders hunch. Oh, he knew what happened when a witcher forgot himself, got involved, that was for sure. He reached for his beer and took a long swallow. “What can I do?”

“I suppose acting as if you’re worth some consideration is too much to ask,” Jaskier said under his breath, but then his jaw softened, and he leaned forward again, curling his fingers together, tapping them on the table as Geralt scowled, reached for the fowl to tear into it. “No, I suppose it is,” Jaskier said, softly. “You’ve got next to no experience with it, after all, have you? Can’t just jump into these things. We have to build them slowly. Well. Luckily,” he flashed Geralt a grin, “you have me.”

“You,” Geralt repeated flatly, swallowing hard and steeling himself against the way those words curled tight and needy in his belly, wanted to twine warm around his heart and settle into his chest. He did _not_ have Jaskier, not the way he wanted. He wasn’t offering. Geralt was just being stupid. He felt his hand curl into a fist on the table anyway, as if by doing so he could somehow shove away his unwanted, unruly emotions and stop being such a fool.

“Oh, I know it’s quite objectionable to you,” Jaskier said brightly, “but I’m afraid you’ve got me all the same.” He reached out, slid his hand under Geralt’s and gently tugged at his fingers, opening his fist again. “Careful, you’ll start it bleeding again,” he said.

Geralt swallowed, felt himself flush hot, just because Jaskier’s hand was touching his bandaged one, holding it carefully so that he couldn’t easily make a fist. He pulled his hand away, because it was burning all through him, and he abruptly feared the piercing sweetness of that touch, that Jaskier had even cared, might undo him. He quickly spooned more beet soup into his mouth, looking away from Jaskier’s face.

Jaskier sighed, and rested both his hands, very lightly, on Geralt’s bared forearms. He looked up into his face, and Geralt stilled. He didn’t meet Jaskier’s eyes, but he did let the spoon slip back into the bowl. “I’m good at talking,” Jaskier said, his voice still light and flippant, but the touch of his hands grounding and somehow serious in its very gentleness. Geralt could feel the calluses on the bard’s palms, the way his hands were sweating, just a little, cooler than his own fever-hot skin. “And getting my own way—as you know—”

“Hmm,” Geralt grunted, agreeing.

“And demanding the finest things even when I have no earthly right to them,” Jaskier said. “I’m happy to use those skills on your behalf, too, Geralt. You just have to let me, that’s all.” He squeezed Geralt’s forearms, and let go. “And, anyway,” he said. “I take exception when certain individuals insult my friends.”

“Calling me inhuman isn’t an insult,” Geralt managed to get out after a moment, still staring down at his soup. He didn’t quite dare to meet Jaskier’s eyes. He wasn’t sure what he might see, and what he’d do upon seeing whatever he did see there.

“It is when they mean ‘less than a man’ or ‘unfeeling monster to whom I can do or say whatever I want’ by it,” Jaskier said, pulling back now and examining his fingernails. “And I don’t intend to stand for that, Geralt, not while I’m by your side. I won’t have my friends insulted. At least not to their face, or mine.”

Geralt dug his spoon into his soup again and swirled it around. “And what are you going to do about it?” he asked, reflecting just how often he was the recipient of comments Jaskier would no doubt take as insults.

“Was that a dig at my lack of martial skill?” Jaskier said, smiling again. “I think it was. Geralt, you dog. Anyway, that is neither here nor there, because, in fact, I’ve already enacted the next stage of my plan in that regard.”

“Your what?” Geralt asked, startled enough to look up at him.

Jaskier grinned, smug as a cat that had broken into a dairy. “My plan,” he drawled, and propped both his elbows on the table, resting his chin on his hands.

“What plan is that?” Geralt asked warily.

Jaskier grinned and reached out to trace a circle on the tabletop with one finger. “My plan,” he said. “To make certain points very clear to the public, as regards witchers in general and one witcher in particular, my White Wolf. I was singing a new ballad tonight. Not the one I sang you last night, mind.” He faltered a little. “I thought . . . well, that might be just for us for a while longer. I mean. That is. I spent most of today composing another new one.”

Geralt blinked, and felt a warm, soft, tender sort of feeling expanding inside his chest, like a blanket of warm tenderness unfolding, a warm ember catching alight, at the thought that Jaskier had perhaps found the moments when he had sung for Geralt the night before as—as special, in some way, as he had. That he had felt it, too. He felt stupid and stubbornly tried not to think about it, but the truth was he felt a wash of warm, touched emotion curling around his heart at that. Like a fucking purring kitten. Fuck, he had it bad; what the hell was wrong with him? “Another new one?” he finally managed to ask.

Jaskier beamed at him. “Thank you for asking,” he said. “Yes, as a matter of fact! And I premiered it tonight.” He gestured expansively. “It’s about a witcher, but _not_ you, for once, mind you. This one is a tragic cautionary tale, and thus required a more general protagonist, you see.”

“A cautionary tale,” Geralt repeated, eating more partridge and wondering if he should be alarmed by that at all. He wondered how embarrassing this was going to be. The first winter he’d been back at Kaer Morhen since Jaskier’s “Toss a Coin to Your Witcher” had become popular had been marked by unstoppable teasing from just about every quarter.

“A tragic one,” Jaskier agreed, his voice upbeat and enthusiastic with great apparent relish at the prospect. “This witcher fights a monster—what sort I haven’t decided yet, perhaps you can help me with that part. Basilisks seemed too on the nose. Something you’d have trouble with? I first thought of a dragon, but then I remembered that discourse you went on about how killing dragons is against your witcher code, and anyway, aren’t they a myth?” Geralt opened his mouth to correct him, but Jaskier was continuing on, heedless, so he just closed it again and let him. “A wyvern, perhaps? Does that count? Anyway, that part hardly matters. I’ve gone with a cockatrice so far, but that doesn’t seem fearsome enough, somehow. But the witcher does his job, saves a village from this, well, whatever it is, and he’s injured fighting it, you see.” Jaskier gestured, apparently illustratively, at Geralt, who felt himself flush again and wished he was wearing some clothing. “At any rate, he comes back to the inn, where he’s taken a room, and he’s turned away from the inn. He goes to the next tavern, and is turned away there, too. He goes to the mayor’s house, but the mayor won’t put him up, either, the ungrateful rat. And he goes about the town, in the rain, freezing rain, bleeding all the while, from one house to another, and no one will give him shelter or succor or look to his wounds. And of course, even wounded, he could kill any one of them and take whatever he wanted or needed, but he doesn’t, because that’s not what witchers do, is it? And finally, he goes to the graveyard of the town, and he sees a bunch of ghouls there, and he fights them, and he dies in the struggle. And then the ghouls come, of course, and as the town now has no defense, they eat everyone right up just like that, and aren’t they all so very sorry for it then, because who could have saved them but a witcher? After all, it doesn’t take much for a witcher to heal, so if they’d only given him some little aid and a place to sleep for the night, he might have been able to defend them in the morning. But alas, no.” He sat back in his chair and poured himself a mug of beer from the pitcher, made a gesture of salute with it toward Geralt, and drank it down. He winked. “The perils of not tossing a coin to your witcher, you might say.”

Geralt swallowed, and it felt difficult, as if his throat was thick and closed. He bit the inside of his cheek, trying his hardest to keep his face impassive, even as his heart beat almost painfully in his chest. The truth was, he’d nearly experienced that very death—well, less the dramatic, pointed flourishes, of course, like the very morality tale aspect of being turned away from every door, and all of that—but dying alone, in the rain, with a bunch of ghouls, or ghasts, or kikimores, or necrophages, or whatever it was, without even having taken a job to do it, with no one to know of it? It was something he’d barely skirted more than once. It was how he’d always pictured his own death, if he was honest. It was as if Jaskier had been speaking his own thoughts, filtered oddly through his generously compassionate spirit and strange outrage on Geralt’s behalf, so that they came back to him oddly different, as if peered at through a reflective pool or a crystal that warped and magnified and altered them. He swallowed with difficulty again, thickly, and then managed a deep breath. “It’s _not_ about me, you said?” he said, finally.

Jaskier looked at him with apparent surprise. “Certainly not,” he said. “Well, I used you as a bit of a model, of course. You’re the only witcher I know, for one thing. Secondly, you’re certainly too noble to kill anyone and take what they had, though you easily could. I thought your, uh—”

Geralt gave him a look, raising his eyebrows.

“Your unwilling gallantry,” Jaskier said, and that got Geralt to give a dark laugh despite himself, reach for his beer and take a swallow of it. Jaskier sniffed and gave him a look. “Well,” he said, a little huffily. “Whatever you think. That quality of yours, which you have whether you want to admit it or not, would make my point all the better. All that—that self-denial and nobility makes it all the more tragic, doesn’t it? But of course the song isn’t about you, Geralt. The witcher in the song is alone and friendless, and he dies, and you have friends. And before you insist that I am not your friend, please allow me to assure you that I am not speaking only of myself. You make friends wherever you go, whether you want to admit it or not. Besides, the whole point of the exercise is to ensure that this will _not_ happen to you. That’s why cautionary tales exist.”

Geralt stared at him, shocked out of any other response he might have had, for a long moment. He forgot even to swallow his beer at first. Jaskier stared back, raising his own eyebrows now.

“What about that Skelligan druid in Cintra?” the bard asked. “That lovely red-headed sorceress we ran into a few months back? The one with the most adorable freckles, and the laugh. That dwarven merchant in Novigrad? That armorer in Maribor? Old Nenneke and her priestesses?”

Geralt swallowed. “You meet a few people when you’ve lived as long as I have,” he muttered unwillingly. “Far outnumbered by the people who’d rather run me out of town, let me tell you that now.”

“Ah, well, just a sign of a life well-lived,” Jaskier said, with the merry attitude of a bard who’d been run out of half the towns he’d been to and never let it bother him in the slightest, and took a swallow of his own beer. “You still have more friends than you’d admit to,” he added. “Whether you include me among their number or not.”

Geralt stabbed at his soup probably unnecessarily with his spoon. “Of course you’re my friend, Jask,” he said, felt himself flush hot, and shoved a giant spoonful of it into his mouth so he wouldn’t be expected to respond.

Jaskier’s laugh was merry and joyful, and when Geralt looked at him carefully, stealing a glance from under his eyelashes and his hair, he was glowing, his face lit up like a sunny day. “Oh, Geralt,” he said. “My friend.” He reached out and took Geralt’s uninjured hand, squeezed it. “If only you knew what that meant to me,” he said, then his bright smile bloomed wide once more, brightening the room all at once, all over again. And doing the same thing to Geralt’s heart. Like a fucking candelabra. “I knew that, of course,” he said, then, even as he let go of Geralt’s hand. “But it’s nice to hear the words from the source, so to speak.”

“Hmm,” Geralt grunted, terrified he’d betray some sort of other emotion if he said anything more, and scowled, shoving more soup into his mouth. He took a long swallow of beer and tried very hard not to think that he wished Jaskier had held his hand just a little longer.

“Of course, you’re half out of your head with fever,” Jaskier said. “I expect you’ll regret spilling your guts to me quite a bit when you’re feeling better. And, honestly, I shouldn’t take advantage. But I’ll hold you to that, Geralt, see if I don’t.”

“Hmm,” Geralt agreed. He wiped his mouth, and sighed. “You can hold me to whatever you want, Jaskier,” he muttered. It was true, after all.

“The things a man could do with an opening like that one,” Jaskier murmured, eyes glittering wickedly, and Geralt glared at him. The bard laughed gaily, waved his hand at him, and turned to his own meal. Geralt shoved bits of beet around in his soup with his spoon, until his emotions had calmed down just a bit, and he was no longer in any danger of embarrassing himself, and his hunger overwhelmed him again, and they ate in silence for a bit—or what passed for silence with Jaskier, which involved him humming to himself and commenting on the meal and the performance and the inn itself and whatever popped into his head, and Geralt occasionally making a noise of acknowledgement if it seemed like Jaskier was waiting for one. He was able to lose himself in concentrating on the food, the bread with its sweet butter, the deep flavor of the soup, the richness of the meat, the welcome bitterness and full dark flavor of the beer, and not think about anything else for at least the length of the meal. Jaskier finished before he did, and got up, crossed over to the fire, and Geralt realized he was putting a kettle on the hook that swung over it, heating water again. He finished sopping up the remnants of the soup with a piece of bread and shoved it into his mouth as he watched Jaskier, humming to himself all the while, as he unlaced his doublet and pulled it off, set it over a chair, then turned his eyes and his mind very firmly back to the partridge. And the bread. Bread was good. And no doubt better for him and his peace of mind than watching the roundness of Jaskier’s arse under his trousers.

He succeeded in concentrating on the food fully, until he was finished, and Jaskier came back with a cup of hot water and herbs steeped in it and pushed it across the table toward him. “Geralt,” he said, softly, and pushed another bowl of soup after it. Geralt had thought that was simply his portion of the same beet soup he’d had, but now that he saw this one and smelled it up close, he could tell it was different. Rosehip soup, with sweet cream. Jaskier nudged it toward him a little more and placed the cup of herbs firmly in front of him. “It’s good for you when you’re ill,” he said, a little defensively. “Anyway, eat up, all right?”

Geralt just looked at him for a moment, taking in the stubborn set of his jaw, the way the light from the fire lit him from behind, the candlelight played over his skin, the line of his pale bare forearms where he’d shoved his sleeves up around his elbows again. There was a concern and a worried plea in Jaskier’s eyes that he couldn’t have refused at any rate, but it was the softness in his eyes and the stubbornness in his mouth and chin that finally had Geralt smiling just a little and shaking his head. “All right,” he said, and Jaskier handed him a new spoon. Geralt took it, waggled it at him in acknowledgment, and started in on this soup, too. It was sweet and sour at once, fruity and bright, and it tasted good, almost like a sweet, but at the same time relentlessly healthy. He drank the cup of herbs without Jaskier’s prompting him again, then sighed and sat back in the bed, let his head drop into his good hand.

It didn’t surprise him that Jaskier was instantly there again, putting one hand on his arm. “How are you feeling, then?” he asked.

“Better,” Geralt said, and gestured at the remnants of their meal. “Full.” He took a breath. “I was hungry, Jaskier, thank you.”

Jaskier flushed up as prettily as a girl paid her first compliment at a Beltane dance and smiled. “It was my pleasure,” he said. “Nice to see you well fed for once, I might add. Back to bed?”

“I’m in bed,” Geralt said, smiling a little, surprised to know that he could still enjoy teasing Jaskier just as much as he had before he’d had his realizations earlier that night.

Jaskier made a face and shook his head at him. “Oh, shut up, you,” he said. “You think you’re funny, but you’re not, trust me.” He sat down beside Geralt on the bed and reached over him, pulled the rolled up blanket out from behind him, readjusted the pillows, then pushed him back down into the bed with both hands on his shoulders. Geralt went with playfully exaggerated meekness, still smiling, and Jaskier smiled back, reached for one of the pillows and beat him once, very gently and deliberately, in the head with it. “Rogue,” he said, then shoved the pillow behind Geralt’s head. “Comfortable?”

Geralt sighed. “Very,” he said, and it was the truth. Jaskier smiled again, his eyes softening, and he reached out, let his fingers linger on the side of Geralt’s face, his palm cup his jaw, for a long moment. Their eyes met, and Geralt felt like the world stilled just for a few of his own slow heartbeats, like he was hyperaware of those beats of his heart in his chest, the feeling like taking one of his own potions, hyperaware of his own heavy breaths, of the quick flutter of Jaskier’s pulse in his throat, the flicker of his eyelashes, the dull gleam of wet in the dim light as he licked his bottom lip, the way the firelight caught just the edges of Jaskier’s hair and turned their rich brown to gold—and then Jaskier leaned forward, put his lips to Geralt’s forehead again, a soft, gentle kiss, and Geralt felt his own eyes flutter closed, felt air escape him on a sigh. Jaskier stroked the side of his face, very gently, with his fingers, just for a moment, and then pulled back. His fingers lingered there on Geralt’s cheek, on his jaw, for a moment more, and Geralt felt very hot indeed, like his fever flared up there, wherever Jaskier touched. For a dizzy, wild, insane moment, he thought that perhaps Jaskier might lean forward again, touch their lips together, that he might kiss him on the mouth in truth, though why he would he had no idea—but then the moment passed, and Jaskier formed his hand into a gentle fist, touched it to Geralt’s chin, and sat back.

“Call for me if you need _anything_ , all right?” he said, and patted Geralt’s shoulder. Geralt looked at his hand, there, feeling dizzy and off balance, like he was drunk all over again, barely able to process the sight of it, the feel, like he was out of his body, or drunk off his arse. “I’m ready for anything. If you need a piss, a drink, if you want your hair brushed or me to rub your temples for a headache, if you’d like another cool cloth, anything at all, all right?”

“Hmm,” Geralt said, noncommittally. Jaskier sighed, and helped him turn onto his side, covered him with the blankets again, gently stroking back his hair. Geralt sighed and closed his eyes.

“Ah,” Jaskier said, and ran his hand up into Geralt’s hair, to cup his skull, letting his palm fill up with the white strands. “I see how it is. You’d never ask for this, would you?”

Geralt swore to himself that if he were well, he’d have pulled away. As it was, he . . . well, he didn’t. He couldn’t quite bear to. Instead of answering, he kept his eyes closed and his body lax, as if that wasn’t asking for what Jaskier was giving. He felt pathetic, but he couldn’t bring himself to pull away, either, not while Jaskier was still stroking his hair like that, so gently. He wasn’t sure anyone had ever touched his hair like that before. Not quite like that. He’d had lovers who were fascinated with it, who liked pulling it, even petting it, all sorts, but somehow this was . . . it was different, and it made something deeply inside of him quiver and soften and quiet.

“Lucky for you, you don’t have to ask,” Jaskier told him, his voice as gentle as his hands, soothing, understanding, but, miraculously, not pitying at all. Very, very fond, fond as anything, but not pitying. He scratched lightly at Geralt’s scalp, ran his fingers gently over his crown, and then went back to stroking gently through his hair, letting his fingers gently untangle the snarls it had acquired after a day tossing and turning in bed. Geralt sighed in pleasure, let all the tension run out of his body. The touch was so soothing, so wonderful, so calming, that it was almost like even the heat of his fever ceased to bother him, as if even it had eased beneath the gentle pleasure of that rhythmic touch. Jaskier slid up, settled himself a little more firmly in the bed, sitting beside him, and brought his other hand up to gently stroke it through Geralt’s hair as well. After a while, Jaskier started humming, and Geralt had to hide a smile against the pillow and his arm when he realized it was “Toss a Coin to Your Witcher.”

He fell asleep like that, again, Jaskier still gently petting both hands through his hair, stroking his head and the back of his neck, rubbing his thumbs in and up and down the muscle at Geralt’s nape, humming absentmindedly. Geralt looped one arm around the pillow and realized, a second before sleep, that it was the most relaxed he’d felt in . . . well, in months. And it had taken a fever and serious injury to get there.

If that didn’t say something about his life, Geralt didn’t know what did.

He dreamed again. He was riding Roach through a field of yellow flowers, the sun warm on his back and on his hair, the drone of bees in his ears, and it smelled of summer and pollen and warm blooming things. Jaskier was far ahead of him, resplendent in violet silk, with a hat with a bobbing feather in it. Geralt realized the bard was waiting, singing something to himself, but ride as he might, he seemed to draw no closer to the other man. Finally, because he wanted Jaskier to know he was trying to reach him, he waved a hand, called out to him, and Jaskier looked up, feather nodding, and even though he was distant, Geralt could see him smile at the sight of him. The other man started back toward Geralt, at a run, and now, finally, the distance between them shrunk, and rapidly. Finally, Jaskier reached him, took hold of Roach’s rein and swung around to face him, beaming. “Geralt!” he said, “At last!” And Geralt slid down from Roach, feeling his own unfamiliar smile on his face, and reached for him, and Jaskier stepped into the circle of his arms, put both hands on Geralt’s shoulders, and their lips met—

Geralt jolted awake, shocked into wakefulness by the dream. He couldn’t believe he’d dreamed such a thing for a moment, lay there blinking and staring into space, panting. The room was darker now, but he couldn’t have slept that long, could he? He could still feel Jaskier’s hand in his hair. He looked back up at him, quick and alarmed, to see what he’d made of Geralt’s sudden awakening—only to realize that the other man was asleep, fallen asleep sitting up, leaned against the headboard, head drooping onto his own shoulder and mouth open and wet against his shirt, one hand still in Geralt’s hair. He could hear the quick, even, slumberous beating of his heart.

Geralt took a breath, composed himself, breathing a long slow sigh back out, then reached for Jaskier, laid his hand carefully against his thigh. “Jaskier,” he said, and shook him, gently. “Jaskier, wake up.” Jaskier slumbered on. Geralt sighed, and shifted a little, reaching up to take Jaskier’s shoulder and shake him a little more firmly. “Jaskier,” he said.

Jaskier jolted awake with a gasp and a sputtering, stumbling babble of surprised, incoherent words, and Geralt moved quickly to slide his hand behind his head so that he wouldn’t bang it hard into the headboard. “Wha—Geralt? What?” Jaskier blurted out, and then rubbed his mouth, looking around the room as if disoriented. “Oh, I—what? What time is it?”

“You fell asleep,” Geralt said, taking his hand away, carefully. It tingled from the feel of Jaskier’s hair, his warmth, and he curled it into a fist, flexed it, to banish it. “I was sleeping, too, so I don’t know how long it’s been, but you should sleep in bed instead.”

“Oh, I . . .” Jaskier looked at him, then gave a little, uncertain sounding laugh. “Right,” he said. “I’ll, err, I’ll do that, then.” He yawned, and sat up, then reached out, brushed Geralt’s hair with his fingers, ever so gently, then dropped his hand, quickly, formed his fingers into a fist and pressed it into his thigh. He swallowed. "I’ll be right back.”

“Hmm,” Geralt acknowledged, and watched him slide out of bed and stand there, yawning, for a long moment, before he appeared to get his thoughts in order and took himself out of the room. Probably to take a piss. Geralt rolled over in bed and pillowed his head on his arm.

Was he dreaming about Jaskier now? Wasn’t that pathetic. He’d never done that about someone he’d wanted before, not even as a stupid boy. And even besides that, waking, he couldn’t imagine Jaskier wanting him, really wanting him. That really was a dream. How could he possibly expect Jaskier to want him? And even if Jaskier did want him, could want him, he shouldn’t. That was the crux of it, really. Geralt wasn’t some idealistic youth with stars in his eyes. He knew how the world worked, and his place in it. He had no place to be thinking about Jaskier like this. It—he—wasn’t for him. Jaskier was—was a human man, maybe not quite normal when it came to how he acted, maybe not quite like any other man Geralt had ever met, but human all the same, and Geralt knew that Jaskier was not for him, and he was not for Jaskier.

He just had to get his subconscious mind and his fucking stupid, yearning heart to accept that as well. Repeating it to himself, pounding it into his damn head, was a start. It would be unforgivably selfish to make a play for Jaskier for himself, and he knew it. He couldn’t repay the bard’s friendship, his kindness, that way. Geralt was—he led a cruel life, and he was hard and hardened by it. He was not easy to deal with, or easy to like. Even if he hadn’t been a mutated freak, he was old and irritable, and he didn’t really know the first thing about love or poetry or music or any of the things that Jaskier liked or cared about. Sure, they had good, fine conversations, but he would never be able to give the other man what he needed or wanted, and he knew it. So the kindest thing would be to offer him friendship and nothing more. Jaskier had been so very kind to him, now, and always, since they’d met. It was the least he could do in return. What could he, of all people, offer the bard, other than that?

Of course, what he could do to control his feverish dreams, Geralt wasn’t quite certain. Normally, he didn’t need much sleep, and he’d simply have foregone it a few nights until he felt the worst of his longing had passed again. But, right now, that wasn’t an option. He had to sleep to heal. It was an uncomfortable position to be in. He supposed he was just lucky that his body was too battered and drained and ill to be getting obviously interested in anything much at all. The last thing he needed was to reach for Jaskier in his sleep or rut up against him like some mindless beast in bed.

Geralt sighed, turned over on his stomach, and pressed his face against his arm, making certain it curled over the pillow, obscured his face. He took deep, even breaths, in hopes that he could either pretend to be sleeping or be nearly there in truth by the time Jaskier came back in, and tried to push all other thoughts out of his head.

Jaskier came back into the room very quietly, some while later, when Geralt really was nearly dozing, like he was trying to be quiet and not wake Geralt. “Geralt?” he murmured, nearly whispered, by the door, and when Geralt didn’t respond, he seemed to assume he was asleep. He hadn’t put his boots back on, and he padded around the room a bit in his bare feet, changed his clothes, blew out the candle by the bed, and then he was coming over to the bed. He touched Geralt’s shoulder, once, very carefully, with gentle fingers, then ran them gently through his hair, and Geralt couldn’t keep back his shudder, his exhaled breath. “Ah, sweetness, you do like that, don’t you,” Jaskier muttered, as if to himself, and Geralt didn’t know what to make of that at all. He concentrated on keeping his breaths deep and even. Maybe he’d misheard? Surely, he had. Jaskier patted him gently on the shoulder, then, and said, “Sleep well, my dear White Wolf. Melitele knows you need it.”

Geralt felt dizzy and strange, as if he’d begun to hallucinate. Jaskier was very affectionate, he reminded himself. He was an exaggerator, and a liar, and even if he used words of love or affection to refer to Geralt, that didn’t mean he meant them, just as he had a new undying passion for a girl in every town they passed through, or nearly. And then, he was nearly asleep. Perhaps he had just dreamed it, again . . . yes, that had to be it . . . he was sleepy, and his mind had constructed out of half-heard syllables what he’d wanted to hear. It just made no sense otherwise . . . did it? No. It didn’t.

Jaskier, thankfully clearly still unaware of Geralt’s panicky rationalizations, swung himself nimbly into the bed, up and over Geralt, then pulled back the covers, slid under them. Geralt had a moment of hope that he’d sleep facing the other direction, as he had the night before, but instead, Jaskier turned toward him. Fuck, Geralt thought, fervently, the curse heartfelt and deep. This was the last thing he needed.

Jaskier reached out, gently brushed strands of hair back from Geralt’s face, behind his ear. What he was thinking, Geralt truly could not imagine, especially as he ran the lute-string-callused tips of his fingers down over the side of Geralt’s face, toward his chin. “So pale,” Jaskier murmured after a while. “All this time, and I’ve never seen you look so ill.” So that had been it. More worry. He sighed, and his fingers slid upward toward Geralt’s forehead and lingered there, just for a moment. “You will be well again soon, won’t you? Ah, Geralt. Heal quickly, all right?” And with that, Jaskier’s fingers lingered on his temple a moment longer, and then he shifted, moved his hand away, and curled up in the bed just inches from Geralt’s arm. Geralt had a moment of intense desire for him to close the distance between them and press himself warm and sweet and real into Geralt’s side, then pushed it away with a vengeance, violently. No, damn it. This was going to be hell, if Jaskier was really going to sleep right there, just like that, so close and just—he was so damn trusting, in the bed next to him. Geralt was his friend, or at least according to Jaskier he was, and Geralt felt himself wanting to live up to that, and they’d shared beds and campsites and bedrolls for years now, and he’d never done a thing to make Jaskier uncomfortable with him. He wouldn’t start now.

But he couldn’t help the traitorous, sneaking desire to roll back onto his side, to see if Jaskier might press closer, press himself against his chest and lie there, close and intimate enough to feel where his heart beat so much more slowly than Jaskier’s, so that Geralt could tuck his head down into the soft chestnut brown of Jaskier’s hair where it just started to curl and breathe him in. He had done that before, stolen moments when they’d shared a bedroll or even just a blanket for warmth and Jaskier had, shivering, pressed up tight against Geralt’s greater heat, but how could he justify that to himself now? He was unpleasantly warm to begin with, burning with feverish heat, such that Jaskier would hardly want to be pressed up against him, and the room was a perfect, toasty warm versus the chill outside.

Geralt waited for long moments, until Jaskier’s breathing, his heartbeat, evened out, and he knew he was asleep. Only then did he stir, roll onto his side, bring his arm down so that he could really see him. Jaskier was sprawled loosely across the bed, head pillowed on one arm and half on the pillow. His other hand was sprawled out, open, nearly touching Geralt’s chest. He sighed, and reached down, let himself take Jaskier’s hand in his, covered it with his own. Jaskier had slim, graceful, strong hands. Geralt had always found watching them fascinating. Jaskier’s hand was a little cold in his, but then, normal humans were colder than witchers anyway, and Jaskier wasn’t feverish, nor had he had the benefit of lying in a warm bed all day. Jaskier had calluses from his lute playing on his palm and on all of his fingers, his thumb, but his hand was still slim and soft compared to Geralt’s, his nails clean and well kept. Geralt felt like a thief, but the ability to touch Jaskier’s hand, just like this, also felt impossibly precious to him. Impossibly valuable.

Just this once, Geralt thought. He’d let himself, just this once.

Geralt let his fingers slide down to cover Jaskier’s quick, even pulse in his wrist, and sighed, closed his eyes. He fell asleep again with their hands not quite clasped, listening to the sound of Jaskier’s pulse, and feeling it beat beneath his hand.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, there's some more food and eating and some more mention of bodily functions. There's also vomiting and descriptions of nausea, mentions of some homophobia, fears about homophobia, a brief allusion to homophobic violence and just unfulfilling sex with other men, and sexual content (a handjob). Geralt continues to feel ill and unwell and to have self-loathing thoughts.

Geralt woke up slowly and groggily the next morning and didn’t have the first clue where he was, again. Everything hurt, his skin ached and his bones throbbed. Even his damn teeth hurt. He felt like he’d been used for target practice by a giant’s slingshot, and he felt very much as if he didn’t want to move his head, in case something horrible happened as a result, or it hurt even worse. There were scattered, disjointed, vague memories of the inn, of a fight with basilisks, acid down his back and a bite torn out of his leg, of food and rain and a bath and Jaskier, something about a song—about the rain? About him?—but he couldn’t seem to connect them at first, and they didn’t seem to make sense when he woke to find himself curled in a warm bed, with someone pressed into his chest. He didn’t remember going to bed with anyone. He didn’t remember anyone but Jaskier, and he didn’t feel well, at all, surely not well enough to coax anyone into his bed, or to do much once they got there.

He took a slow breath, blew it back out, trying to clear his head enough to remember anything clearly, and that was when he realized that the person in his arms smelled, and felt, very male, and very familiar. Someone he was very used to having invade his space, and sleep close beside him, come to that. A familiar scent of perfume tickling his nose. Most people would have woken him by pressing close, curling in against his chest, but not Jaskier. His unconscious mind already knew Jaskier was safe, trusted, a friend, no threat. His arms were close around Jaskier, and his head was down, pressed into his hair, so that he could smell the scent of him, of his skin. Their hands were still linked together, Geralt’s loose around Jaskier’s wrist, Jaskier’s curled inward against his. Jaskier felt utterly relaxed against him, loose and comfortable and trusting, his head resting on Geralt’s shoulder, tucked in against his chest, his mouth open enough that Geralt’s skin felt wet there, damp, and their legs twined together. They fit together surprisingly well, though that Geralt had already known. Geralt noticed that Jaskier was wearing Geralt’s black shirt again, and the same loose, torn pair of breeches he’d worn to bed the night before. The shirt was huge on him, revealed a great deal of pale skin and chest hair.

His hand moved before he thought, skimming down over Jaskier’s back, feeling him slim and solid beneath the movement of the loose black fabric, the comforting warm reality of him, the curve of his back, and Geralt took another slow, deep breath. Wearing Geralt’s shirt had overlaid Jaskier’s own scent with his own. Geralt liked it.

Then reality slammed back into him, and with a vengeance. He’d been afraid of this, the night before, of waking up to having pulled Jaskier close, reaching out for him in his sleep and pulling him into his arms, and, sure enough, it appeared he’d done exactly that. Damn it. Fuck. Geralt shifted back, carefully, biting the inside of his cheek, hard, against the groan that wanted to escape him as his body bloomed into tight, agonizing pain. His head throbbed, eyes aching even in the dimness of the room with the shutters closed. He felt himself pant a little, surprised at how bad it had turned and how suddenly, felt sweat break out across his forehead and the back of his neck. Clearly his healing wounds were in the stage where they tormented him for getting them in the first place, a punishment he deserved, no doubt. He felt dizzy, nauseated and hot and ill, like he might vomit, as soon as he began to move. He rolled over, bracing himself with one arm, and took a few hoarse, panting drags of breath, then shifted his legs over the other side of the bed, tried to push himself up to a sitting position.

He nearly lurched forward onto the floor, ended up catching himself against the edge of the table by the bed with both hands, then swore, flinching, as his injured palm pressed against the wood, and snatched it away again.

“Geralt?” Jaskier’s voice came sleepily from behind him.

Geralt growled, pushed beyond endurance by the fact that Jaskier had woken in time to see him nearly bash his head open on the damned table, seen him weak and trembling and making an ass out of himself. It came out as practically a snarl. He heard Jaskier yawn, felt him push himself up behind him.

“Quite the bear this morning, eh, aren’t we?” Jaskier said, with a groggy laugh. “I understand; I don’t much care for mornings, myself,” and then, more sharply, “Fuck! What are you doing, Geralt? You should stay in bed, you’re not healed yet—” His cool hand came down on Geralt’s shoulder, and Geralt flinched, snarled at him again. He could see Jaskier fall back, his face a little shocked.

“I have to piss,” Geralt growled. “And I’ll do it on my _own_.”

Jaskier, who had already been reaching out to him, words offering help clearly already on his lips, fell back, pressed his lips together, and took a deep breath. Geralt wasn’t sure if the look on his face was one of hurt, but he was desperately afraid it was, and he could see it as Jaskier flushed hot. Still, Jaskier was smiling at him again in another moment, soft and gentle and almost bolstering, as if Geralt was the one who needed reassurance, though Geralt could still smell the flush of emotion on him. “Of course,” he said. “I’ll leave you, then, and be back in a moment. I’ll just be in the privy, down the hall, so don’t hesitate to call if you need me.” And with that he popped out of the bed, pushing himself off it down near the foot, sketched an elaborate, teasing, silly sort of bow in Geralt’s direction, and slipped out of the room.

Geralt swayed forward and propped his elbows on his knees, dropped his face into his hand, trying to get his breathing back under control. He carefully, purposefully, did not think about how he’d just lashed out at Jaskier.

It was probably for the best, anyway. Remind the both of them that if they got too close nothing awaited either of them but pain. If last night was any indication, Jaskier already felt too much for him, understood him too well, for his own good.

He took a deep, long, shaking breath, blew it back out, and then stood, dragging himself to a standing position with one hand on the table, then the nearby chair. He realized then that he had to bend over to get the chamber pot out. “Fuck,” he muttered, and, sure enough, he nearly fell, attempting it, but, somehow, by luck alone, really, he managed to keep his balance and drag himself back up.

He had to brace his elbows on the table and put the chamber pot on the chair, but eventually he managed, and he used one of the spare corners of linen lying on the table, dipped in the cold water Jaskier had left on the table, to wipe his hands, splashed cold water on his face, and fell back into the bed with a groan. When he rolled over, face down, he could smell Jaskier on the sheets, nothing more than the lingering scent of his body. His heart lurched in his chest, a pain piercing his heart like a needle of poison, a tender ache twining in his gut, and Geralt snarled at himself again, punched the mattress, and regretted it immensely and immediately as it brought his entire torso and side into a flare of agony, like a plume of flame set against his chest. He heard himself give a pathetic little whimper at that tight flare of pain and immediately hated himself for it, set his jaw, and pushed his face into the pillow to make sure he didn’t do anything else stupid.

He must have fallen right back to sleep, because he had no memory of Jaskier coming back into the room, or him emptying the chamber pot, or much of anything after that, for some time, or it must have been. He woke again, later, panting, grasping for his sword, his breathing coming hard, rasping in his throat, scanning the room with alarm.

Jaskier touched his hair, gently, and Geralt jumped, then groaned as his whole body throbbed with pain. He felt more than heard his own little complaining, whimpering breath, and fell back into the bed with a gasp.

“Fuck, gods, I’m sorry, Geralt,” Jaskier said. “I didn’t mean to startle you so. You’re feeling worse today, aren’t you?”

Geralt nodded tightly. He knew what this was. He’d done his best to mitigate the toxicity of the potions he’d taken and to neutralize the basilisk’s venom, but his body was now fighting off the rest of it, what he hadn’t managed to handle himself. Add to that his muscles, stiff from a day of rest, his body bruised from head to toe, and his healing wounds, and the simple fact that he was flat on his back in bed and letting himself feel it. It was one reason he often kept himself active through the pain. He was healing, but he knew how it worked. Today was not going to be enjoyable, at all. “S’all right,” he managed to rasp out, finally. “Only t’be expected.” He kept his eyes nearly shut, they were so sensitive to the light.

Jaskier took in a breath, and there was a moment of silence, before Jaskier’s hand settled more solidly on his shoulder and squeezed, gently enough that it barely made his aching muscles give a flare of pain. “Do you want any breakfast?” Jaskier asked. “I’ll get you whatever you desire, I promise you. Just see if I don’t. Fruit not in season, I’ll still find a way to procure it for you. Sweetmeats, edible orchids, perhaps, a haunch of venison. Money is no object, Geralt. Whatever you wish.”

“That’s how you end up with obligations to some sorceress or other,” Geralt managed, finally, through his aching head. “I knew a fellow once, made a deal for some rampion . . .” he shook his head to clear it. That didn’t matter. “The point is, the deal’s never good,” he said anyway.

“More groats?” Jaskier asked, wisely. “Or do you prefer something a little more savory?”

“That would be fine,” Geralt said, blearily, and buried his face in the pillow again. He felt sweaty, his forehead and the back of his neck first so hot he could feel the sweat beading, dripping down the skin, then cold, making him shiver as air touched the cold sweat. It felt as if he could hear everything—the people downstairs, in the other rooms in the inn, in the building next door. Cows lowing. Pigeons cooing. His head throbbed. He wished Jaskier would sing again. When he sang or played, he could concentrate on his voice, just that, and nothing else.

He was awoken again by Jaskier’s cool, gentle hand on his shoulder. When Geralt groaned, and tried to push himself upward in a bleary, fogged haze, he slid his shoulder under Geralt’s and helped him shift himself over to the edge of the bed without a word, then patted his back and got up, pulled the table over to him. Geralt felt dizzy and sick and nauseated, his pupils too dilated and his head a constant pain, and it was a struggle to get down even the warm, fluffy, fragrant piece of bread, golden with melted butter, and the aromatic sausages and cheese and boiled eggs in sorrel and mustard sauce Jaskier had brought for him. He drained the cup of buttermilk Jaskier pushed toward him in a daze, after, then obediently drank the herbal tea Jaskier gave him after that. “This is just meadowsweet and willow bark, mixed,” Jaskier said. “I—I know those are good for pain.”

“They are,” Geralt managed, downed the herbal tea, liberally mixed with honey—a little over-sweetened, if he was honest, but that was Jaskier, and he couldn’t fault him for the thought, though he could for the waste of something as expensive as honey—and fell back into the bed with a groan.

“Oh, Geralt,” Jaskier said, and when Geralt forced his eyes open to slits against the pounding of his headache, he saw him standing beside the bed, wringing his hands. The bard reached toward him, but then pulled back, crossed his arms tightly across his chest. His expressive face was drawn and tight with concern, and that made something small and tight and painful, a combination of touched tenderness and guilt, settle into Geralt’s belly. “Is it very bad?”

“No,” he grunted out. “I just need to sleep it off.”

Jaskier bit his bottom lip. “Are you certain?” he said.

“Yes,” Geralt said, and rolled over in bed again. “Go on, Jaskier,” he said into the pillow.

“Hmm,” Jaskier said. Geralt sighed and closed his eyes. He felt himself falling into sleep again in another moment, his hand relaxing against the coverlet, and he didn’t stop himself.

Geralt woke to the confused, fevered knowledge that his head was throbbing much less, and he was feeling better, a little less nauseated. He could feel as well as hear a quick, familiar heartbeat, was surrounded by a familiar scent, his head pillowed on warmth—and he knew even without opening his eyes that he was lying with his head in Jaskier’s lap. The bard’s fingers were featherlight, stroking through his hair, caressing his forehead, rubbing his temples, and his touch, his hands, felt soft and cool. There was so much relief in his touch that Geralt felt his throat growing thick, choking up. He just—hadn’t expected that kind of relief. This kind of—of care, or attention. He hadn’t expected that throbbing, blinding, grinding pain in his head to ease, not for hours.

“Shh,” Jaskier murmured. “Keep your eyes closed. Just go back to sleep, Geralt.” He stroked his hair, even more gently than he had been doing last night. “Just go back to sleep.”

“Jaskier,” Geralt managed to rasp out.

“Right here,” Jaskier said, softly. “Yes, it’s me. You’re safe. Everything’s all right. Just go back to sleep.” He gave a little laugh. “You can imagine I’m a beautiful maiden, if you’d prefer. Or, you seem to go in for terrifying sorceresses, rather, don’t you? Or prostitutes. I could be one of them instead.” He smoothed his cool palm over Geralt’s brow again, went back to stroking his hair. “I saw how you liked this last night,” he said, “and there’s absolutely no need to be embarrassed, or get all stoic and tough and unnecessary about it and never let me touch your hair ever again, either. I won’t speak of it to anyone, I promise you. Just let me do this for you. That’s all I ask.”

“Why would I imagine that,” Geralt asked blankly, his voice still nothing more than a hoarse, grinding rasp.

“Err,” Jaskier said, and his fingers stilled in Geralt’s hair. Geralt gave a noise of protest. “I thought that might be the sort of thing—you’d like to picture? Isn’t that what most men would rather have, when it comes to their choice of people to stroke their hair so they might sleep? A mystical maid, or a princess, a fair queen, or . . . I mean . . . someone much prettier than me.”

“You’re pretty enough for me,” Geralt said blearily. “And why would they be here? No one does this for me but you, Jaskier.”

“Oh,” Jaskier said, and his voice was breathless, and sounded rather choked, almost wet. “Well, then, I suppose.” His fingers resumed stroking gently.

“Good hands,” Geralt sighed. Jaskier had such good hands.

“Are they?” Jaskier said, with a little laugh, still sounding rather choked and thick. He slid his fingers down, pressed gently on Geralt’s temples, rubbed in a slow, gentle circle. “I try. Now shh, I won’t stop. Just go back to sleep.”

“Don’t have to do this,” Geralt managed, after a moment of just . . . floating away on the gentle pressure of that touch, how good it felt. He didn’t want Jaskier to feel obligated by his weakness, his own pathetic need, to be doing this because of _that_. That was the last thing he wanted.

“I know,” Jaskier said, softly. His fingers shifted, rubbed gently at Geralt’s forehead, tugged back carefully through his hair, slow gentle strokes, untangling as they went. It made Geralt shiver all the way to his toes. “I know that, my friend. I’m doing this because I want to. Trust me.”

“Mmm,” Geralt said. He wanted to ask if all of Jaskier’s friends got this kind of attentive treatment, but it seemed like a great deal of effort to get the words lined up and out of his mouth. Instead he shifted until he was comfortable, though really, how could he not be comfortable, pillowed on Jaskier’s lap, and let himself drift away again.

If he dreamt of anything, he didn’t recall it. He remembered a dreamy sense of cool water and the shine of moonlight on a lake, but nothing more. He was vaguely aware, at times, of the soothing feeling of Jaskier’s fingers smoothing across his brow or at his temples or nape, but then he would fall back fully into sleep again.

Geralt wasn’t sure how much later it was when he woke, just that he was lying against the pillow now, not Jaskier’s lap, covered with the blankets. He blinked, disoriented, wondering if Jaskier stroking his hair had been nothing more than a fevered dream, an illusion of his pining, delirious brain. His head throbbed now, felt hot again. He shifted, tried to sit up, and regretted it immediately as his body bloomed into pain, his skin sensitive and raw, his muscles throbbing. He subsided back into the bed with a groan, rolled back over facedown.

“Geralt?” came Jaskier’s voice, so he hadn’t even been lucky enough to have Jaskier out of the room for that particular pitiful performance. Geralt grunted in response and didn’t move. “Geralt?” Jaskier’s voice came again. “Are you awake?”

“Hmm,” Geralt responded, little as he wanted to, then managed, “Yeah. I’m here.” He wanted to ask how long he’d been asleep, but he didn’t have the energy. His head was pounding. He felt as if he might vomit if he moved more than the barest inch.

“You’ve slept for hours,” Jaskier said, sounding a bit hesitant. Geralt, with an effort, rolled his head over to the other side and opened his eyes to painful slits. The light was still dim, thankfully, but opening his eyes still sent a spike of pain stabbing up into his head. He could see Jaskier, silhouetted in front of the fire, his lute in his lap, fingers stilled on the strings like he’d been playing. As Geralt watched, he put the lute aside and stood up, took a mug up from the table, and crossed his side.

“Mmm,” Geralt said. “And I still feel like warmed over shit.”

Jaskier gave a startled little laugh at that. “Yes,” he said. “I’m sorry, for that. I don’t know how to help you.” He helped Geralt roll over, just a little, and put one hand at the back of his head, held it up, held the mug to his lips. It was more meadowsweet and willow bark, this time with birch and linden, chamomile and peppermint. He could tell by the smell.

“Hmm,” Geralt said, because he would have chosen those herbs for himself, and drank. Once he was done, and he was certain his stomach wouldn’t rebel and bring it all right back up, he pushed at Jaskier’s wrist, and he moved the mug away, set it aside on the table, and let him sink back down. “Done plenty already, songbird,” he managed to say, finally. “We both know you’re no healer.”

“I wish I could help you more,” Jaskier said, his hand lightly, carefully, brushing over Geralt’s hair and shoulder and side, as if following the shape of him, but barely touching him. “I can’t help but feel as if I’m not being much use to you, like this.”

Geralt couldn’t help it, he gave a hoarse, ragged laugh at that. “Jaskier,” he said. “You must be joking.” He gestured at him, the room, with a vague wave of his hand, didn’t have the energy for more, and let it fall back into the bed. “Who did all this for me? I certainly haven’t had the wits or, or the wherewithal, to look after myself.”

“I feel like you’re more talkative when you’re fevered,” Jaskier said, gently tracing Geralt’s hairline with his cool, soft fingertips. “That would be quite a speech from you, normally.”

“Fuck off,” Geralt said, feeling his face going hot, or, well, hotter, irritated and a little stung.

“Oh, shh,” Jaskier said. “I didn’t mean it like that. Thank you, Geralt.” He sighed, his hand stilling against Geralt’s hair. “It’s just hard to see you suffering so, and I suppose I’m finding that I don’t like it.”

“I don’t much like it either,” Geralt managed to get out. His head was swimming, and he had to be certain to take slow, careful breaths to keep his gorge under control.

“Yes, I imagine not,” Jaskier said. “That was selfish of me, wasn’t it? Of course, this is harder on you than it is on me. I’m sorry. Making it all about me, as usual, hmm?” He stroked his hand through Geralt’s hair, again, and Geralt sighed. It still felt so good.

“No,” he said. “Not selfish.” He found Jaskier’s knee with his good hand, patted his thigh. “Nice that you care.”

Fuck. Shit. Shouldn’t have said that. Fuck it all. But it was. Damn him, and his stupid heart.

“Oh, is it?” Jaskier said, and when Geralt looked at him he was making a strange face, smiling, but oddly twisted with emotion, bittersweet. Geralt could hear his heart thumping away, but it was always so quick. “You are rather darling like this, if I’m honest. I wish you didn’t have to hurt so badly to end up this way.”

Geralt made a face at him. Darling? Really? “What’s that supposed to mean?” he growled.

“Merely that you talk to me, and have discovered a capability for putting your feelings into words I didn’t realize you possessed,” Jaskier said lightly, laying his hand cool and welcome against the back of Geralt’s neck. Geralt let that soothe him.

“Yeah, well, they don’t teach us eloquence and rhetoric at Kaer Morhen,” Geralt said. “We mainly communicate in grunts and sign language.”

Jaskier laughed, sounding delighted. “Geralt, my friend,” he said. “Was that a _joke_?”

“I make jokes,” Geralt muttered.

“True, true,” Jaskier said lightly. “I suppose you do, even if they tend rather to the dark and dour side. However, I rather feared you were feeling too wretched to find any humor in the situation.”

“Hmm,” Geralt grunted. He could tell when Jaskier was placating him. Still, Jaskier was stroking his hair again, and that felt too good to complain much, his cool, gentle fingers running through the strands, massaging against his scalp and the back of his neck. He sighed with the surprising relief that brought, and to his further surprise, Jaskier reached out, took Geralt’s hand in his, the uninjured one, and squeezed it firmly, holding it tight.

“Remember when I was ill at Midwinter?” he asked, softly.

“Hmm,” Geralt confirmed. Of course, he did, even if Jaskier hadn’t mentioned it already since they’d been there. He had been frightened for him, though he’d done his best not to show it. It was sometimes hard to tell what was a serious illness in normal humans, and though he’d suspected it wasn’t serious, he’d known plenty who died of fevers. He’d thought perhaps he was being foolish, and at any rate, he hadn’t wanted to frighten Jaskier, so he’d tried to hide his own worry.

“It was just a bad case of the sniffles,” Jaskier continued, “but I seem to recall at the worst of it waking up to find you holding my hand, just like this.”

Geralt felt himself getting even warmer. He had done that. He’d sat by Jaskier’s bed for hours, probably, worriedly scanning his face for signs that the fever was breaking, listening to his heart and his congested breathing, the air in his lungs.

“It was more comforting than I could ever say,” Jaskier said, in a very soft voice. “To know my big, strong White Wolf was there, looking after me.”

“Oh, come on, Jaskier,” Geralt said, feeling embarrassed, caught out and very, very stupid. “Fuck off.” He’d known Jaskier was conscious off and on, then, sleeping uneasily as he had been, but he hadn’t spoken of it the next day, and Geralt had thought that would be the end of it. He turned his face further into the pillow.

“I’d like to do the same for you,” Jaskier continued, squeezing his hand, his fingers a featherlight touch in his hair. “If you’d let me. If it would help you, as it did me. But perhaps you’d just find my presence an irritant—a burden?” He reached out, touched Geralt’s forehead, over his ear, slid one finger over the scars on his face. “Someone you have to try to look strong in front of, when you’re not feeling very strong at all?”

“Little late for that,” Geralt managed hoarsely, and even managed a wry smile to go along with it.

“Ha,” Jaskier said. “Well, I hope you know that I’ll never hold it against you, or reproach you for it, but I also know that that isn’t going to stop you. It isn’t as simple as that, is it? It’s a habit with you. In fact, looking at all weak in front of me will probably convince you that you have to be all the stronger, all the tougher, in front of me for months.”

“Habit for good reason,” Geralt protested. What the fuck? How did—how did Jaskier—why did—and besides, didn’t Jaskier realize what the perils of looking weak were for him? How badly it could go? Half the reason he had as little trouble as he did have, traveling, was because he looked like too much trouble to harass.

“Oh, I know that,” Jaskier said. “But you’re not having hordes of visitors, are you? It’s just little old me.” He gave a vague gesture at himself, around the room, not letting go of Geralt’s hand. “What could I do to you?”

Geralt smiled to himself. Well, apparently, break his stupid old heart, for one. “What, indeed?” he asked. “Stab me in the back with a carving knife, to start with . . . .”

Jaskier bit back a laugh. “You’re right, you _do_ joke,” he said. “Either that, or the fever is cooking your brains.”

“Can’t be both?” Geralt asked. He had to admit, it was damned comforting to have Jaskier holding his hand. Fuck it all. He wasn’t some snot-nosed boy any longer, needing comfort for a wound, an illness, a nightmare, or a fear of the dark—but he also didn’t want to give up his touch.

“I knew you were holding out on me,” Jaskier said, his voice still soft, but Geralt knew he was still smiling. “I knew you were keeping a vast trove, a glittering treasure, of cleverness to yourself.”

“Shut up, Jaskier,” Geralt said, but he was smiling himself, now. It was just so ridiculous. He wasn’t that clever. He did have a lot of thoughts he didn’t share, but they weren’t particularly clever ones, he didn’t think.

“I will, and let you sleep,” Jaskier said. “But I do notice you haven’t told me to let go and get the fuck away from you, so I think I might stay, if you don’t mind.”

Geralt sighed, and smiled into his pillow. And Jaskier stayed. First while Geralt slept, again, soothed by Jaskier’s hand in his hair and the touch of his palm against his own, the beat of his pulse there in his wrist by Geralt’s fingers, then there still when he woke up, nauseated and unwell, his stomach at last rebelling. Jaskier was quick enough to bring a bowl, even managed to get it under him before Geralt vomited up his guts. He felt disgusting, and pathetic, and embarrassed with it, but Jaskier kept telling him not to fret, got him water and then vodka to rinse the taste of it out of his mouth, cleaned up and took the bowl out to the privy, all without complaining. Geralt was half asleep and aching, his head throbbing pillowed on his arm, by the time Jaskier came back. He sat down on the bed beside Geralt’s head again and wiped his face down with a cool cloth, leaning forward to press his hair back with his hand and press a kiss to the top of his head, despite how completely and utterly disgusting Geralt felt.

“Who the hell are you,” he muttered, “and what have you done with the preening peacock of a bard who hates getting his hands dirty or doing anything disgusting?”

He was rewarded with Jaskier’s sweetest chuckle, and another kiss to his brow, sweet and somehow cool. “He decided it’s not so bad when it’s for a friend,” he said, and wrung out the cloth in a new, fresh bowl of water, brought it back to Geralt’s face, wiping the sweat down gently, down his neck, cooling his face with a gentle, persistent care. “Do you need more potions, or something? More water? What can I do for you?”

Geralt reached out, found Jaskier’s knee, and squeezed. He wanted him to know he was doing quite enough as it was, that Geralt didn’t need more from him. But since he _had_ asked, and there was real worry in his voice that Geralt would have done just about anything in his power to ease . . . . “A tisane of licorice and fennel, chamomile, ginger, vinegar, and peppermint,” he finally said. “Hops and lemon balm, too, if there are any left. It should help with the urge to vomit again.” And he’d have to gather more chamomile, the next time he saw a big patch of it growing, after this.

“All right,” Jaskier said, carefully. One of the nice things about Jaskier was that Geralt rarely had to repeat anything to the other man. The man had the kind of memory only bards possessed, trained in recall and memorization to the point that he remembered nearly everything Geralt said, anyway, which was often annoying, but also tended to be useful. “You have ginger on you?”

Geralt huffed out a laugh. “Yes,” he said. “In the pack with the rest of the herbs. Dried powder; the candied stuff is even more expensive.”

“So it is,” Jaskier said. “Did you know, I used to be given a piece of candied ginger to suck on when I was sick to my stomach as a child?”

Geralt squeezed his hand with fondness. “Spoiled brat,” he said with affection.

“Oh, dreadfully,” Jaskier said, with that laugh that always made Geralt feel warm and light all through. He squeezed his hand one more time, then got up, covering Geralt with the blankets, pulling them up over his shoulder, as he did, then patting him there before he moved off toward the fire and the kettle on the table. Geralt missed the feel of his hand in his and hated himself for it. He pulled his hand in toward his chest, forming it into a fist. “Can I put honey in it,” Jaskier asked, looking consideringly into the saddlebags, “or will that stop it from working somehow?”

“No,” Geralt said. “But it’s a waste of honey.”

“Not if it will soothe your stomach,” Jaskier said, filling the kettle and setting it on the hook to swing it over the fire. “I personally don’t fancy the taste of raw vinegar on a raw throat, either. I quite don’t see how that will settle your digestion.”

“Hmm,” Geralt grunted. “Vinegar helps.” But he had to admit it also had a tendency to burn, and of course it was sour as a kelpie’s disposition on a bad day.

Jaskier drummed his fingers on the table, then shook his head. “Honey it is,” he said. “If I have to cheat another fellow at cards to pay for more, so be it. No one in this town can really play. If we are going to Novigrad, I’m sure I can find some to replace it when we get there.”

“It’s extravagant,” Geralt gritted out.

Jaskier turned a smile on him, one that had sweetness and softness lurking in the corners of it. “A little extravagance isn’t the end of the world,” he told him.

“Hmm,” Geralt grunted. Extravagance was Jaskier’s world, not his, he thought. It would be nothing but ridiculous if he of all people played at having fine things or fine tastes. Every time he had, things had only ended badly. But, still, it would likely do no harm to let Jaskier’s world touch his, just for a time. In truth, little as he wanted to admit it, Geralt enjoyed the way Jaskier’s tastes intersected with his when they traveled together on the road, Jaskier’s insistence on fine food and warm baths and other such little, unnecessary things gilding Geralt’s existence like a ray of sunlight limning things in bright, fleeting gold.

Fleeting, Geralt reminded himself. It couldn’t last. His and Jaskier’s lives intersected, they did not run parallel, nor were they meant to. He closed his eyes and tried not to either think about anything in particular or aggravate his discomfort by moving or shifting or fidgeting. He could hear Jaskier moving around the room, humming to himself as he usually did when he was doing much of anything. This time it wasn’t one of his own compositions, but an old but popular drinking song with dirty lyrics that Geralt happened to know. Listening to the tune made it easier to let his mind drift and not think of anything in particular, at least, until he heard Jaskier coming back toward him and pushed himself up on one elbow, opened his eyes.

“Goodness,” Jaskier said, sliding onto the bed next to Geralt so that his warm rear pressed right up against Geralt’s groin through the blanket in a way he found immeasurably distracting. He squeezed his eyes shut and took a breath before he trusted himself to open them again. “I didn’t see that you were awake,” Jaskier said. “You surprised me. Don’t you ever rest, Geralt?”

“You know that I do,” Geralt said. He let Jaskier slip one hand under his neck and help him sit up, reaching for the mug in his hand. He gulped the honey vinegar herbal concoction down in several determined swallows, and would have laid back with a sigh, except that Jaskier patted his shoulder and handed him another mug, this one of cool water. He drank that down, too, then finally lay back and closed his eyes.

“Yes, well,” Jaskier said, and his cool, damp fingers came to rest against Geralt’s temple again, feathered soft as anything through his hair. Geralt sighed. “You sleep like a cat. I swear, the slightest sound rouses you.”

“Hmm,” Geralt allowed. “When I’m not healing and off my feet, maybe. It’s an important skill for a witcher to have.”

“How is that going, by the way?” Jaskier asked, cool fingers lingering on the back of Geralt’s neck, over his pulse. Geralt let himself enjoy it, breathing deep and slow.

“The healing?” he asked, finally, and Jaskier nodded, made a noise of acknowledgment. Geralt sighed. “It’s going,” he said. He wished he could tell Jaskier he’d be back on his feet in no time, wished he had better, more encouraging news. He was sure the bard was getting tired of dancing attendance on his sorry arse. “I might be better tomorrow. Sorry for the trouble.”

“Good gods, Geralt, you’re no trouble,” Jaskier said. “You’re just lying in bed, sweet and docile as anything. I daresay you _could_ give me trouble—I can very clearly see in my mind’s eye you limping out into the middle of the street to deal with some crisis or another, trust me—but I’m heartily grateful you’ve taken pity on me and kept to your bed. You’ve been awfully good.”

“What’s good about lying in bed?” Geralt asked, to cover the way he felt himself go hot and self-conscious as soon as Jaskier said that. It was as if Jaskier thinking he was good, in any way at all, went straight to his head, filled it up with dizziness and light, hot air, airy bubbles like soap, and left his face hot and burning, down his neck and into his ears. He knew it meant nothing, but it made something tighten and twist in his stomach, a yearning desire to do more, to be even better for Jaskier, to make him happy, somehow, and that was stupid. Fuck, that was so stupid Geralt could barely process the magnitude of his own stupidity. “I have plenty of things to do,” he added.

“Good sweet Melitele, no, don’t get out of bed,” Jaskier said, splaying one hand out on Geralt’s chest as if he could somehow physically keep him back if Geralt really decided to get up. As it was, though, it felt as if his slim hand and cool, gentle touch burned against Geralt’s bare skin, setting him alight, until the fire burned under his skin, down to his toes and up over his scalp. He hoped he wasn’t flushing too obviously.

“I wasn’t going to,” he muttered. “I was just mentioning. That there’s plenty I could be doing. Rather than lazing about in bed like this.”

“Don’t sulk, witcher, it doesn’t become you,” Jaskier said, but his voice was gentle, and so was his touch when he ran his fingers along Geralt’s forehead, along his face, and he was smiling.

“So little does,” Geralt said sourly, “so why I should I constrain myself,” and Jaskier looked at him with an odd expression on his face.

“I wouldn’t say that,” he said.

Geralt blinked at him, taken aback, and not knowing what he was meant to make of that in the slightest. If Jaskier was teasing him, joking, it struck him as a crueler joke than Jaskier’s usual. He was well aware of what an unattractive figure he presented, on multiple fronts. He didn’t need Jaskier rubbing it in any further. But, oddly, it didn’t seem as if Jaskier was teasing, especially since the bard’s heartrate had increased, pounding in his chest, he was sweating just a touch more than he had before, and his eyes had dilated, his cheeks flushed. Jaskier looked away in the next moment and used one hand to push his hair back from his face, blowing his breath out. A moment later he sighed, then he was smiling at Geralt again.

“I’ll leave you to rest, then,” he said. “Let me know when you need me, won’t you?” He leaned in, fixed Geralt with what he seemed to think was a stern look. “You will let me know, won’t you? None of this nonsense about bothering me, now.”

Geralt really did hope that the fact that he was flushed and hot was obscured by his fever. Or at least, that Jaskier would assume it was because of his fever, and not due to any other reason. “Yeah,” he muttered.

“Geralt,” Jaskier said, warningly.

“Sure, I will,” Geralt said. “Now piss off.” He was a damned mess, and he was definitely afraid of what he might say or do or reveal in the next few moments if Jaskier didn’t leave him alone. He might fall apart in truth. Vomiting again might have been preferable to that. In fact, at that particular moment, he would have welcomed the distraction.

“Charming as always, my dear,” Jaskier said, and leapt off the bed with a bounce anyway.

Geralt, for his part, rolled over and buried his face in the bed, and tried to forget everything he’d just said and done, and most of all, how Jaskier had looked flushed and smiling at him, hair falling into his face, hand gentle on his chest, and the way his fingertips had felt, gracefully poised and callused against his bare skin. Maybe if he stopped damned _thinking_ about it, he could forget about it, stop feeling it, too. He was usually more in control of himself than this. Perhaps it was just that he was ill, weakened, and his weakened body had affected his will, his mind. Maybe that was stupid. But it had been a long time since he’d had a passion this hopeless this strongly. He was sure, though, that it would pass, and things would go back to normal, or as much as they could while Jaskier was around, as long as he managed not to say or do anything unforgivably stupid. He didn’t want to give Jaskier a reason to leave and not come back, this time.

And anyway, moving had given his body enough to complain about that it was plenty to take up his thoughts for some time. His muscles ached and throbbed, and his wounds were tight, pulling painfully and complaining every time he so much as twitched. Geralt took deep, slow breaths and blew them back out just as slowly, forcing himself into another meditation, to see what he could do to calm his nausea, his wounds, the pain, the fever. And any other stray thoughts he might have.

He was aware of staying in the meditative trance for hours, of Jaskier moving around the room, playing the lute again, and singing, that the bard left the room at some point and came back, but, like it always was with meditation, it was all very far away. When he finally did pull himself out of it, it was because his need to relieve himself had become too pressing to ignore.

Usually meditation cleared and sharpened his mind, his thoughts, but Geralt came out of it feeling muzzy and confused instead, hot and dizzy and barely conscious. He slipped backward on the bed, had to catch himself with one arm, and moved to push himself out from under the coverlet and the sheets, not really thinking at all about anything other than finding the chamber pot and relieving himself.

“Oi, hey, hey, what did I tell you?” came Jaskier’s voice, and then he was there, in another moment, both hands on Geralt, one on his shoulder, the other on his thigh. “Oh, goddess,” he said in another moment, “y-you’re right there, all of you, there you are, how do I keep forgetting you’re in the buff? Anyway, Geralt—” He dropped to one knee, looked up at him, face almost imploring. “Didn’t I tell you? I’m certain I did tell you. Ask me if you need anything. Remember?”

“Hmm,” Geralt grunted. His head was hazy, hazy and thick, and he couldn’t think of much, of anything.

“Ah, well, forget it,” Jaskier said, and then his arm was there, and firm, around Geralt’s waist. He helped him up, let him use him as a brace, holding him steadily and securely under his arm, as Geralt took care of himself with a sigh of relief, then let his head fall heavily onto Jaskier’s shoulder. “I—goodness!” Jaskier said, surprise rippling through his body and his muscles, though he didn’t quite jump. Geralt could smell the sharp tang of the surprise on him. He lifted one hand, then, slid it onto the nape of Geralt’s neck, cupping the base of his skull, under his hair. “Yes,” he said, after a moment, almost a sigh, the damp touch of his mouth, his lips, resting against Geralt’s temple. Not quite a kiss, Geralt thought, though his whole body shivered, alive with awareness, with heat, at the touch. “There you are. I’ve got you, Geralt, here. Come on, now.” He led Geralt back to the bed, pushed him and bullied him gently into it, then pulled up the covers. Geralt subsided with a sigh, let his head sink into the pillows, as he heard Jaskier gather up the chamber pot and leave the room with it.

He must have fallen asleep again, he thought. He lost time. When he woke again, it was to Jaskier’s hand on his shoulder, soft and cool and a little damp, as if he’d just washed up. He made a questioning noise, raised his head, but Jaskier smoothed his hair, nudged his head back down with a gentle hand. “You can sleep, Geralt, shh,” he said. “I’m just going to change your bandages and clean you up a bit, all right? So don’t, err, stab me or try to break my neck or anything.”

“Hmm,” Geralt agreed, and closed his eyes again.

“I’ll take that as an agreement,” Jaskier said, softly, “so I’ll be quite put out if you try to break my neck, Geralt, all right?”

“Mmm,” Geralt agreed, again. Jaskier was stroking his hair, again, and it felt so very, very good when he did that. Perhaps he never would have known, how good that felt, without Jaskier. Or perhaps it only felt as good as it did because it was Jaskier. Geralt sighed, gave up the question, and rolled on his side to give Jaskier better access to his wounds.

He half expected Jaskier to start talk talk talking away about anything and everything under the sun, as he usually did when he was doing something dull, and so he was vaguely surprised when the bard stayed quiet. He wasn’t even humming as he worked carefully at the bandages around Geralt’s side. Geralt sighed, blew out his breath and let himself drift back into that thick, heavy feeling of sleepiness that tugged at him, pulled him back under into its depths. The lack of talk or humming or song, the quiet, did make it easier to fall back asleep. He was vaguely aware of Jaskier working at the bandages and pulling them away at his side, the feeling of a warm compress against his wound, stinging gently with salt, making him ache like the pain of worrying a sore tooth, until he shifted, half-aware, let out a breath of discomfort. Then Jaskier touched his shoulder, murmured to him, touched the back of his neck gently, before he wiped the wound clean and there was salve over it again, and fresh linen, and bandages tugging around Geralt’s chest and stomach again. He must have drifted further into sleep, after that, because he was hardly aware of anything except a warm touch and a gentle sting that made him flinch in his doze when it came to the wound in his leg.

He was pulled out of that doze just by the feeling of another warm compress at the wound in his back, and more gentle cleaning that made the damned thing start to burn and itch all over again. Jaskier must have been paying attention, either to when Geralt had washed his own wounds with saltwater, or when he’d done the same to some of Jaskier’s injuries and scrapes, though Geralt wouldn’t have believed he’d remember much of anything except for it hurting. He flexed his muscles in his back, huffed out a breath of discomfort at the itch, and Jaskier murmured, “Right, it itches, I remember.” His nails were there on Geralt’s back, a moment later, scratching around the wound and up over his shoulders, over his scars, as he had the day before, and Geralt let out a long breath, a low groan at the relief. Fuck, but that felt good.

He was only half awake, enough that it was easy enough to let himself slide back toward sleep, even as he felt Jaskier begin to spread fresh salve thickly over the wound. He woke up just enough to hold himself up on one elbow while Jaskier wrapped bandages around him again, then subsided back into the bed and let himself slip back into sleep. His head throbbed, and his body ached, but none of it seemed to matter much as he lay there semi-conscious and Jaskier unwrapped and cleaned the scrapes on his hand, salved and rewrapped it, then sponged him down with that warm cloth, even though he was sliding it down over Geralt’s arms and legs, up his thighs, over his hips and buttocks and up along his sides, carefully avoiding his bandages, and that might have felt very alarmingly intimate if he’d been more awake. As it was, Geralt couldn’t bother to care. He rolled back over and drank more of the tea Jaskier had mixed for his nausea when Jaskier urged him to, then lay back in the bed and let Jaskier bathe his face and the back of his neck. He was just awake enough to register it when Jaskier patted him on the shoulder and got up, pulling the blankets back up over him, smoothing them over his shoulder in a way that made Geralt feel soft and shivery, and left the bed. He slept.

He woke sometime later, with a feeling that he’d been dreaming but no memory of his dreams. He was lying on his side, and the first thing he saw when he blinked his eyes open was the fire in the hearth. Someone was playing the lute, rather softly, a soft, wistful melody, one he recognized, one of Jaskier’s older pieces, a piece of drivel about a knight who left to serve his king, leaving his lady behind, then after a time, longed to see her, only to return and find that she had died, and die himself of grief, like fucking idiots did in ballads. Like anyone had actually ever died of a broken heart. Jaskier had told him, huffily, that the plot wasn’t the point of the thing, that it was “literary.” Was that Jaskier? He wasn’t singing, but it had to be him. Geralt blinked the sleep-groggy haze out of his eyes, tried to clear them, and finally they cleared enough to see Jaskier there, silhouetted by the fire as he looked into it, his feet up on another chair as he played. As Geralt watched, he took a breath, bit his bottom lip, sucked on it slightly, and smoothly shifted into another song Geralt recognized—“Elaine Ettariel.” He hummed slightly, the tonal, wistful, almost wailing vocal part, but quietly enough that if Geralt had still been asleep it likely wouldn’t have woken even him.

Belatedly, Geralt realized that he was watching something much rarer than most people might have thought it was, even Geralt, before he’d come to know Jaskier a little better, as well as he did now—Jaskier playing simply for himself, not for any audience, or with anyone else in mind. He clearly wasn’t practicing anything specific, and usually, even with no one but Geralt around, Jaskier pitched whatever he was playing or singing as a sort of performance, for whoever he was with at the time, which could be anywhere from understated and unspoken, a little bit of smiling in Geralt’s direction and a careful choice of songs to the full, intense focus of Jaskier’s charisma and force of personality, which, whenever it was turned on Geralt alone, always seemed to leave him feeling rather dazzled and dazed, like he’d stared into the sun too long without narrowing his pupils. It sometimes felt rather like being struck in the head.

This was something entirely different. There was none of the bright flash of that glittering showmanship. This was just . . . Jaskier, not putting on a show, not even just for Geralt.

After Jaskier finished the elven ballad, he sat there for a moment, doing nothing but strumming his fingers idly over the strings, before he sighed and then began what Geralt vaguely recognized as a courante, a dance Jaskier often played when he was called to provide music for some noble function or another. Geralt probably wouldn’t have recognized it, except that Jaskier had once spent an entire trip from Ellander to Vizima practicing literally nothing else but this specific version, due to the apparently tricky fingering in this particular piece, determined to get it right, driving Geralt half mad in the process. It was interesting to see him play it now apparently without thinking, as easily as anything, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. He was humming again, but it seemed like it was some other song, not anything that went with the courante itself. When he finished that, Jaskier started something else, a soft, wistful melody that sounded vaguely, oddly familiar to Geralt, though he wasn’t certain he’d ever heard Jaskier play it before. He eventually placed it as an old tune he knew as “The Queen’s Shore,” a song that he’d heard often in his youth, not so much recently. It made him feel strangely wistful, to hear Jaskier play it now, with the kind of slow, soft, thoughtful gentleness he was using, a kind of sensitive tender slow lightness, lingering over each melodic phrase like he was pondering a philosophical problem. And perhaps he was, staring into the fire like that. Geralt felt suddenly as if he were witnessing something private, something intimate, that perhaps he had not been meant to see, that wasn’t for him at all.

He cleared his throat. “Jaskier,” he said, and it came out of his throat hoarse and raspy.

Jaskier startled, his hand sliding downward in a liquid jangling trill on the strings before he laid his hand flat on them to still the sound. “Geralt!” he said, in another moment, turning to look at him and smile, lifting his lute to set it down in its case on the chair where he’d been resting his feet in another moment. He didn’t seem self-conscious in the least, so Geralt was reassured that he hadn’t invaded a private moment too egregiously by listening. “How are you feeling?” he asked, crossing the room to, to Geralt’s surprise, take up a kneeling position beside Geralt’s bed, crossing his arms on the side of the mattress, alarmingly close to Geralt’s own, so close he could feel his warmth, smell the sweat and musky sweetness of his warm skin, even smell the slight tang of wine on his breath, and then reaching up to press a hand against his cheek, then his forehead. He made a face, apparently at Geralt’s temperature, then smiled at him, stroking his fingers against Geralt’s forehead, gently, over his temple. Geralt felt very aware that Jaskier was kneeling there in just his shirt and trousers, shirt unlaced at the throat and open enough that he could see curling wisps of chest hair, smell him even more clearly, spicy and sweet and real. He thought the smell of Jaskier’s skin would be forever imprinted on his memory, smelling it so close to him like this.

“No better, then?” Geralt managed to rasp out. He felt hot, that was for certain. The back of his neck and his shoulders felt damp and sticky with heat, with sweat.

Jaskier shrugged. “Well,” he said. “We’re getting there.” He scrambled up to his feet, poured a mugful of water, then sat down by Geralt’s side on the edge of the bed, slid his hand around the back of his neck in what was becoming a familiar gesture of support. It never failed to make Geralt’s skin prickle, awash with awareness of Jaskier’s touch, with goosebumps, but he tried to push away the shiver it sent through him, pushed himself up on one elbow and took the swallows of water Jaskier coaxed on him. When the mug was empty, he fell back, feeling flushed and hot and sore all over again. Less nauseated, though, which was something. The water was cooling, and Geralt was grateful. His whole body seemed to hurt. He took a deep, slow breath, blew it out.

Jaskier was humming to himself again, a little, as he touched the side of Geralt’s face with gloriously cool, damp, gentle fingers, brushed his hair back again. He pet his hair a little more, trailing his fingers through the rough strands, and Geralt sighed, closed his eyes. He let himself soak it up for just a moment. After all, soon he’d be well, and Jaskier would stop touching him again, stop touching him like this at all. He’d never even imagined that Jaskier could be this sweet and gentle and attentive, and now he felt like a cad for not having expected it or imagined it of him, as if he’d done him a great disservice in his inability to imagine this of him, and a cad and a thief for reveling in it so, when he truly didn’t need it, and he was sure Jaskier had better things to do and didn’t particularly enjoy coddling him like this. It was solely his own selfishness that kept Geralt in bed, luxuriating in every gentle touch Jaskier saw fit to bestow on him. If the bard was this sensitive and attentive often in bed, no wonder he had such a reputation as a lover. Not that he was in bed now. If Jaskier gave his lovers even more—Geralt could hardly envision it, what that would be like, what that would feel like. The mere idea felt heady, overwhelming. Dizzying.

He needed not to dwell on it. It wasn’t for him, at any rate. He felt himself flush again, and he turned his head further into the pillow, not feeling quite up to looking Jaskier in the face right at that moment.

Jaskier just stroked the back of his neck, instead, down over his shoulders, fingertips gentle as anything, for long moments, before he sighed and set his palm against the back of Geralt’s head. “Geralt,” he said. “If I brought you another bowl of rosehip soup, do you think you could keep it down, or would you just be ill again?”

“Hmm,” Geralt said. His stomach was unsettled, and his guts ached, but there was a gnawing emptiness there, too, his belly clenching on nothing. He was awfully hungry. “I can keep it down,” he decided.

“All right, then,” Jaskier said, and patted his shoulder gently. “I’m trusting you. You’d best not be lying to me, Geralt.”

“Hmm,” was all Geralt felt like saying to that. Jaskier patted him on the shoulder again and got to his feet. Geralt moved his arm up, rested his head on it, as he watched him through nearly shut eyes, traipsing around the room, pulling his boots and a doublet back on, running a hand through his hair and looking around the room as if trying to figure out where he’d left something, before picking up his coin purse from the table, then putting it back down, putting his lute away safely in its case, then picking up his purse again and nodding to himself. Geralt was smiling against his own arm by the time Jaskier let himself out of the room and he closed his eyes.

Still, he was hoping they wouldn’t charge Jaskier too much for the soup. It was hardly worth it. If they’d been out in the wilderness and it had been autumn or winter, Geralt could have made his own damn rosehip soup. Maybe he should have done that when Jaskier had been sick over the winter. He would next time. Geralt was sure he could figure out how to make rosehip soup. Couldn’t be any harder than White Raffard’s Decoction. Rosehips, honey, some sort of starch, maybe, to thicken it, a sprinkle of aromatic spices if they were feeling extravagant, perhaps, yoghurt or sweet cream?

He let himself rest a while longer, breathing evenly and trying not to move too much so as not to aggravate the aches that seemed to have taken up residence in every muscle and fiber of his being, even in his bones. It was always like this when he was healing in earnest. By tomorrow, it would probably be nearly gone, his wounds nearly healed. For the rest of the night, he’d be in for it, though. He could practically feel his flesh knitting. It wasn’t pleasant. Plus it fucking itched. Geralt vaguely considered trying to twist around to scratch at his own back but contented himself with scratching around his bandaged thigh and carefully dragging his nails over the bandage itself. The gash on his side was probably nearly healed by now, anyway, and he let himself scratch a bit harder at that, since Jaskier wasn’t around at the moment to fuss over him. It made his muscles scream at him with a flaring ache, pulling tight, like he’d strained every inch of them, every fading bruise doing its best to make itself known, but fuck if it wasn’t worth it. He was panting facedown in the pillow, relishing the feeling despite the pain, stretching his arms, when Jaskier came back into the room with a bowl of soup and at least two pitchers on the tray he was carrying.

“And what do you think you’re doing?” the bard asked, putting the tray down on the table and putting one hand on his cocked hip, sounding disapproving.

“Stretching,” Geralt grunted. “What’s it look like?”

“Am I to take from this that you’re feeling better?” Jaskier asked.

Geralt was sorry to let him down. “Hmm,” he contradicted him. “Still feel like shit.”

“And yet it was too much to ask for you to remain still, I take it,” Jaskier said with a dramatic sigh, rolling his eyes and tossing his head in a way Geralt was very familiar with.

“Not used to just lying in bed,” Geralt said. “Muscles seize up and stiffen that way.”

“Well,” Jaskier said, but he was smiling, almost unwillingly, Geralt thought. “If you’re not going to be a good boy, and lie still, maybe I shouldn’t give you the biscuits I brought you along with the soup.”

Geralt squinted at him. “I’m hungry,” he grumbled.

“Now that does sound like a step in the right direction,” Jaskier said, and Geralt didn’t think he imagined the way fondness was creeping into that smile. “You could barely look at breakfast without turning a little green, could you, my friend?” He smiled a little more, the smile softening as it widened. “On the other hand, you were very good and told me that you still weren’t feeling your best instead of trying to fob me off with some ridiculous _I’m fine_ ,” he let his voice drop into a low rasp there, which was his usual imitation of Geralt, “as usual, so you do deserve these.” He pushed a plate of soft, fluffy, fragrant bread, thick with melted butter, and thin, sweet brown spiced biscuits beside it, to rest in front of Geralt on the table still next to the bed, then put the bowl down in front of him, too, and sprinkled several smaller bits of biscuit over the top.

Geralt glared at him, giving him a look, and reached out, picked up one of the biscuits, and took a very deliberate bite of it. Jaskier laughed, a chuckle that was very nearly a giggle, and covered his mouth with his fist, looking away. The laugh was infectious, and Geralt found himself smiling, shaking his head, as he finished the biscuit in a more leisurely fashion and tilted his face down over the soup. It did smell good, sweet, tangy-earthy, and appetizing.

Jaskier poured him a mugful of what looked and smelled like small beer from one of the pitchers, smiling at him again. “I suppose you can have this, too, then,” he said, in one of his more teasing, more flirtatious tones, leaning in over it, and Geralt bit the inside of his cheek, almost bit his tongue. He managed to grunt something, reaching for the mug of beer. “What, no thanks?” Jaskier said, leaning on the table and propping himself on one elbow. “You don’t think I make a winning serving maid? I think I do.”

Geralt had to swallow hard. His chest and the back of his neck felt hot, and for the first time since he’d been hurt, he felt real heat stirring in his groin. It was the light flush on Jaskier’s cheeks, the way he could see his tongue, licking his bottom lip, curling against his teeth, the flirtatious sweep of his eyelashes and the scent of lavender from his hair, the scent of roses and wood and ivy and spice from his wrists and behind his ears, mixing with the smell of his skin and sweat and musk, that did it, more than anything he was really saying. Geralt swallowed thickly, pressed one fist into his thigh, the other into the table. When that wasn’t enough, he pushed his fist into the wound in his thigh, under the table, so that Jaskier wouldn’t see and fuss, or wonder what he was doing, and let the sudden shock of pain cool the heat in his groin.

Yes, Jaskier made a very winning serving maid. And Geralt was grateful. For his attentive kindness, for dancing attendance on him, for all of it. Geralt, swallowed, cleared his throat, and ended up just saying, very hoarse and grudging, “Thank you.”

He wouldn’t have admitted it willingly, without prompting, but it was worth it, with the way Jaskier beamed at him as he straightened up. “See,” he said, “you can be courteous, can’t you, witcher?”

“Hmm,” Geralt said. He took a breath. “Can be,” he said, and turned his attention to the soup, trying not to concentrate on the little huffing laugh Jaskier gave, how delighted he sounded.

“But you just choose not to be, is that it?” Jaskier chuckled. “Well, I’m particularly honored you bestowed your courtesy upon me, then.”

Geralt just grunted, afraid what his face might give away if he met Jaskier’s eyes now. He quickly spooned soup into his mouth rather than risk looking up at him. Jaskier didn’t seem to mind, for in another moment he just picked up the other pitcher he’d brought, took it to the kettle by the fire and poured the water in the pitcher into it until it was full, then pushed it over the flame, kneeling to build the fire back up from where it had died down. Geralt had taught Jaskier how to build a fire most effectively, years ago, when he’d noticed the younger man watching how he built up their campfire as if to try and figure out how he made it last, how to make certain it caught even when it was tricky, how to get the flame he wanted, and it was oddly satisfying to see how well he made use of those skills now. At least following after Geralt had taught him something, something tangible, something that could warm him on cold nights when he wasn’t by Geralt’s side. Geralt had been good for him in that much at least. Jaskier hadn’t just suffered for knowing him.

Geralt turned his attention back to the soup. It was actually extremely good, with the light touch of spice the cook had added, what was surely honey, the sweet cream, and the biscuits were incredible. Geralt didn’t usually eat biscuits, or sugardolls, or other sweet things, but he had a vague memory of a fragile lady suffering from a haunting that he’d been hired to drive off nibbling sweet spiced biscuits and drinking buttermilk to settle her nervous stomach, and a holy woman who had sworn that everyone should eat biscuits spiced with cloves once a day, and he supposed that his nausea was a good enough reason to eat some spiced biscuits. The spices alone would probably do their part to settle it.

Eventually Jaskier straightened back up, went through Geralt’s things again to find the medicinal tea he’d been giving him, and poured some of the dried herbs into another mug. He poured hot water into it and set it to steep, then filled the kettle again with the rest of the water from the pitcher and sat down across from Geralt. It was strange, almost, watching the bard do so many domestic tasks and not utter even a teasing, playful word of complaint. It had been a . . . long time, Geralt thought, since he’d felt this comfortable with anyone. It was almost frightening to think about, like the song Jaskier had described to him the night before, how it had struck Geralt deep with its surprising empathy, like a blow to his chest or a dagger slipped beneath his ribs to pierce his heart, still bleeding and aching from the wound even now. It made him feel uncertain, and strange, and as if he were perhaps in danger, like he was balancing on the edge of a cliff and scanning behind him for a monster he was convinced was at his back at the same time.

He pushed the thoughts out of his head and concentrated on finishing his soup, the biscuits and bread, and drinking the rest of the small beer. Jaskier poured him another mugful when he finished that one, then pushed the cup of steeping herbs across the table at him when he finished that.

“Hmm,” Geralt said, cupping his hands around the warm mug so that the herbal steam washed over his face, moistened his lips. “Is the plan to pour liquid down my throat until I simply float away?”

Jaskier blushed slightly. “Is it too much?” he asked. “When I was ill, you were plying me with something new to drink every hour, it seemed, and you’ve been sweating so much. You feel so hot to, to the touch. I thought perhaps you needed it?”

Geralt had to allow that Jaskier wasn’t wrong about that. It was important to keep a fever well supplied with fluid, and it was damnably easy to get dehydrated. “You’re right,” he said, after a moment, and took a swallow of the tea. “It’s important.”

“Oh,” Jaskier said, and his anxious look relaxed into a smile. “I’m doing rightly, then? You’re just complaining because you’re Geralt in a temper.” He smiled a little more widely and flung himself into the chair across the table with a smile.

“Hmm,” Geralt said. He wouldn’t have gone that far. Still, he couldn’t deny how well Jaskier was doing tending him, and it seemed cruel to deny it just because he felt self-conscious. “You are doing well,” he said, finally.

When he looked up again, Jaskier was smiling happily, beaming, really, his face prettily flushed. His smile, Geralt thought, helplessly. His smile was enough to light the whole damn dimmed room, all on its own. It felt like being outside in a summer day, sun on his hair and shoulders, to have that smile trained on him. “I’m glad,” Jaskier said. “I’m so awfully glad. I just . . .” he faltered a little, looked down, hunching his shoulders forward, before he looked up at Geralt again, and there was an earnestness, a solemnity, in his eyes, behind the soft shield of his smile. “I just want to be doing a good job in this,” he said. “You’ve never—I mean, you’ve never let me look after you so much before, and I’m sure if you could, you’d have chosen a different nurse, but I’m here, and I’d, I’d just like to be certain you’re all right, Geralt.” He threw one hand, open-palmed, across his chest. “I may not be the most skilled, but I swear you could have no more dedicated nurse,” he said, in deeply dramatic tones of declaration.

Geralt felt himself flustered and self-conscious, set off his guard and put on the back foot by how sincere Jaskier had looked, and how vulnerable, how uncertain. For the first time, he thought that perhaps he was not the only one who was feeling . . . naked, stripped down and exposed by their close proximity and Jaskier’s caretaking, that perhaps Jaskier, somehow, was feeling it, too. And fuck, but he had no idea what to do with that, what to say. What could he say to that? Perhaps Jaskier didn’t—couldn’t—love him the way Geralt felt for him, needy, so damn wanting, or it wouldn’t last even if he did or could for a short while, but his friendship was clearly real enough, to do all this, and he had been so damn _good_ to Geralt, the last days, so much so that he felt dizzy when he thought about it, a little. His instinct when he felt like this was to pull back, to lash out, to go on the defensive, to push Jaskier—or whoever it was—away, but he couldn’t repay him for his generosity that way. But he’d sworn to himself, the night before, that he’d start putting up his walls again, that he’d stop being so—so weak and needing. Jaskier had been nothing but kind, but it didn’t follow that he’d _want_ Geralt as anything but a friend. Geralt was making too much of it, of course. He forced himself to imagine Jaskier laughing at him if he made his needy, aching, half-formed, inchoate longings clear, if he reached out to him like a lover in truth, the gentle way he’d no doubt find to turn Geralt down, or, perhaps knowing Geralt as he did, he’d simply be harsh and brutal, making it clear just how ridiculous the idea of the unfeeling witcher having _feelings_ for him, desired and desirable and bright and clever and witty, pursued by many, able to have his pick of whoever he wanted, really was.

Perhaps brutality would be easier.

But Jaskier clearly felt uncertain about how well he’d tended Geralt, and that was the last thing he should feel, after being so attentive and gentle, so kind and so thoughtful. Geralt couldn’t allow that just to make himself feel safer or less exposed and vulnerable. He wasn’t such a coward.

He took a deep breath. “I said that already,” he managed to say, as mildly as he could.

Jaskier blinked at him, let his hand drop. “I’m sorry,” he said, sounding baffled, “what?”

There was a certain pleasure in playing against the other man’s expectations, teasing him like this, Geralt couldn’t deny it. “No better nurse,” he said. “Like I said before.”

Jaskier’s hand flew to his throat, an over the top gesture of surprise that Geralt suspected by now was simple instinctive reflex for the other man, fingers fluttering against the collar of his shirt. “O-oh,” he stammered. “You—I—you. You really do think so?”

Was he really so shocked? Was Geralt really so dismissive of the other man that a simple acknowledgment of the truth, of his careful, thoughtful kindness, came as such a damn surprise?

To his shame, Geralt knew the answer to that one. Yes. Yes, he was. Why Jaskier still seemed to give a shit what he thought was beyond him—how the fuck had he ever earned that?

“Wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t,” he grunted, even though Jaskier clearly deserved more of him than that. He didn’t know how to say more, wouldn’t have known what Jaskier deserved or how to give it to him even if he did. Just one more example of how it was nothing but the purest folly to imagine them together somehow, to pine after him so. Jaskier deserved someone who knew what the fuck he deserved, to start with, and who could give it to him once they figured it out. And that was not Geralt. Clearly. His stupid, helpless wanting was no reason to disregard Jaskier’s welfare. If he loved Jaskier at all, he owed him better than himself. He’d known that for years, and nothing had changed; he just . . . had to keep reminding himself of that.

He’d wanted Jaskier for years, known that it would most likely be good with him, that they might have some fun together, for a brief while, and yet the desire to keep him as a friend, the fear that things between them would change if they added sex to the mix, that Geralt would, inevitably, somehow fuck it up, had kept him from doing or saying anything. Realizing that he had his own damnable _feelings_ for the other man changed nothing. In fact, it was all the more reason to hold himself back, for nothing to change.

If Jaskier had to turn him down, if Geralt saw that pity in his eyes—that _would_ change things between them. At least as it was now, he had the bard’s respect. If he knew Geralt was pining after him like some kind of desperate joke, how much longer would Geralt keep that? Geralt shivered at the thought of Jaskier’s affectionate interest turning to pitying revulsion and bit down hard on the inside of his cheek again, curling his fingers in around the ceramic surface of the mug and taking another deep swallow.

Not for him, he reminded himself. Jaskier was not for him. And his friendship, his tolerance, his respect, his affectionate fondness, was too valuable to risk. He’d decided that long ago. He knew how this worked, how it always worked, how it had to work for one such as he. He couldn’t forget that, forget himself or who he was, just because he had realized he wanted so much more, how much more, impossibly, he wanted. When had what he wanted ever changed anything? When had he become so damn weak, so needy? He was being more of a fool than he had to be.

He finished the cup of herbs and pushed it away, and suddenly Jaskier was there beside him, pushing the table back and away from the bed, working himself between it and the bed until he was right there, sitting on the bed beside Geralt again, putting his hands on Geralt’s shoulders. The position was becoming a familiar one, smelling the scent of him, his warm round rear end pressing into Geralt’s hip, close enough to touch, if he had let himself, to reach out and curl his hand around Jaskier’s slim waist or his side, or his arm, or. Well. The touch of his hands made Geralt shudder, even so. He wanted to put both hands, even the injured one, to Jaskier’s back, just around his waist, pull him in, press his nose to his throat and drink in the scent of him, listen to his heart beat. Just that intimacy felt like an overwhelming thought. Geralt swallowed hard against it, pushed it back.

Dwelling on his hopeless wants wouldn’t help.

“I know you must be in a tremendous hurry to get out of bed and back to work, and your exercises, and sharpening your sword and making your potions and whatnot,” Jaskier said, rather earnestly, Geralt thought, “and Melitele knows I’d like to get you there as soon as possible, but not quite yet, Geralt, all right? I know it must be a dreadful bore, but give it just one more day for me, won’t you? At least one more day for you to heal and recover.”

Geralt swallowed, licked his bottom lip. His throat felt very dry, and he couldn’t seem to look away from the endless blue of Jaskier’s eyes. He was so close. He felt hot all over, and just hoped he wasn’t flushing in a way that was noticeable with the fever. He could feel his pupils dilate, instinctively, and hoped that wasn’t noticeable, either, as he struggled to regain control of them, narrow them again. “I heal quickly, Jaskier,” he managed. “You know that.”

Jaskier gave a rueful little laugh, ducked his head down, but didn’t move away or look away for more than a moment, before his eyes were fixed on Geralt’s again. “I know,” he said, “and I’ve had occasion to see that very clearly for myself over the past day or so, watching you heal from wounds that would have at best crippled a man without your gifts. I don’t dispute that, and I’m heartily glad of it, my friend. But . . .” he slid his gentle, careful hands up along the muscles of Geralt’s neck, fine slim fingers pressing in gentle at the base of his skull and under his ears before they came up to frame his jaw, and Geralt swallowed heavily, convulsively, as Jaskier’s thumbs swept softly along his jawline, “but even you need some time to heal completely, and there’s nothing pressing, in particular, that you need do. Well, I mean, there’s the pile of basilisk heads in the stable, but I’ve paid them a hefty tip to leave them there, and so far, so good.”

Geralt gave a little huff of a laugh, couldn’t help himself, and Jaskier grinned, in that way that lit his face. It made Geralt feel hotter than the fever did, lightheaded and dizzy. “See, Jask,” he said, “this is why decent inns don’t want me as a guest.” He realized that he had no memory of decapitating the basilisks, or of bringing their heads back to the town. He supposed he must have sawed off the heads through pure instinct and dragged them back out of the cave with him, and Jaskier had taken care of bundling them and tying them to Roach’s saddle while he was barely sensible and struggling to stay on Roach’s back. He’d owed the bard more than he knew, if so. Saved him a trip back out to the lair, at best, and a whole headache of complications at worst.

Jaskier bit his lip. His fingertips stroked Geralt’s jaw, gently, and he felt it tingle over his scalp, all the way down his spine. “We-ell,” Jaskier said, lingering over the word, as if considering it, “I suppose I can understand that. But it still doesn’t excuse their lack of courtesy to you.”

Geralt scoffed, but it was hard to be too contrary, even about what he knew to be the realties of life, when Jaskier was touching him like that, and he felt his own slow heartbeat thudding in his ears. Jaskier just smiled, and pressed a lock of hair back behind one of Geralt’s ears. His fingers grazed his cheekbone and left a line of prickling fire where they touched. Geralt turned his head away to hide his response, panting at just that little brush of Jaskier’s fingers, swallowing hard against his own reaction.

“I’ll teach you how to expect what it is you deserve yet, witcher,” Jaskier said, in a soft voice that was hard to read, not quite solemn but not teasing, either. “You’ll see. Trust me.”

“I already expect what I deserve,” Geralt said, and caught Jaskier’s hands, pushing them down and away, not letting himself dwell on the sparks of lightning, of fire, that shot through him when he took Jaskier’s hands in his, at the touch of his skin to his own. How could he expect people for whom he was nothing but a monster, a reminder of everything they feared, of terror and all they didn’t understand, to see him as anything but a necessary evil, to see him for anything but his usefulness? He had never expected more, and it was for the best that way. “That’s where you’ve gotten mixed up, lark. Don’t . . . don’t convince yourself of something that’s not there. For me.” He wasn’t some shining knight or chivalric hero. He had always been afraid that Jaskier saw him that way, in his mind, not for what he really was, and all his fondness and friendship and loyalty and admiration came from that idealization.

“My dear White Wolf,” Jaskier said, with impossible confidence, leaning in, not pulling his hands away from Geralt’s where he held them down near his belly, “I am not the one who’s gotten things mixed up.” He leaned forward even further, took a breath, and then touched his forehead to Geralt’s, closing his eyes for a brief moment. He was close enough that Geralt could smell the slight tinge of beer and wine on his breath, the sweet scent of cloves and biscuits that suggested he’d snuck at least one of them for himself on the way up, the scent of herbs clinging to his skin, the living sweat of him and the way his hair still smelled of lavender. He could see the way his eyelashes feathered against his cheeks with his eyes closed.

Geralt closed his eyes, too, just for a moment, and drank in the scent of Jaskier, breathed him in. He felt as if he would smell him there forever. He wanted to ask if he’d used the lavender oil in his last bath, an unforgivably intimate question, imagined himself setting one hand at the back of Jaskier’s neck and pulling him in, not to kiss, just to feel him there, breathe him in, so vividly he could almost feel himself do it. He didn’t.

“Hmm,” Geralt said, and pushed Jaskier’s hands away instead, not opening his eyes. Before he could lie back in the bed, he felt Jaskier’s lips brush against his temple, soft and light but lingering enough that it was definitely not simply Geralt’s imagination, tingling and shivering through Geralt’s whole body, down to his gut to twist tight in his belly. Only after Jaskier pulled away did he manage to turn on his side and put his head down, and even then Jaskier’s hands lingered on his shoulders, the other man leaning in to adjust his pillows, help him down against the mattress.

 _Snap at him_ , part of Geralt urged. _Let him know you don’t need to be coddled. Push him away. You need to push him away._

He didn’t. He let Jaskier run his hand along Geralt’s bare shoulder, push his hair back off of it, off his neck, tuck it in behind his ear. He grunted, rolled over onto his belly, just so he could turn away from that gentle, cool, constant gentle touch, hide his face and his body—he could feel the way his chest was heaving, the muscles in his abdomen tensing, pulling painfully on the wound in his side—and his reactions from Jaskier’s still strangely affectionate eyes.

If he hadn’t been such a damned coward, he would have asked Jaskier outright—asked him why the hell the bard seemed to like him so much. But he was a coward, wasn’t he? He was damned afraid of the answer. Afraid that Jaskier did only like the vision of him in his mind, after all. Or perhaps that he didn’t really like him at all, only tolerated him for the sake of his songs, of his music, though Geralt had to allow that seemed less and less likely. But whatever his reason said, the fear still pinched cold and painful and withering within him whenever he thought of it. It was so much easier to imagine—well, a great many things he’d rather not think of. Easier to imagine than Jaskier easily relating how much he liked Geralt and why. Besides, Jaskier wasn’t one to spill his guts, either. At best he’d laugh off the question, maybe with an affectionate pat to Geralt’s shoulder, and Geralt would be no closer to an answer at any rate, Geralt told himself, and gave up the notion.

It would just be easier if he had some idea of why Jaskier seemed to enjoy his company so, what it was about him that Jaskier . . . liked. To Geralt it was a bit of a persistent mystery; he certainly hadn’t gone out of his way to be personable or welcoming to the bard, especially in the beginning, he wasn’t kind or thoughtful, or winning. Quite the opposite; he was gruff and crude and withdrawn, he pushed Jaskier (and everyone else) away; he was grim and glowering, cruel and stubborn and cold and difficult. Jaskier, who _was_ winning, who was laughing and bright and charming and funny, couldn’t have been more different from him.

Of course, they’d traveled together for—what was it now, nearly ten years?—off and on, and Geralt had observed Jaskier during that time, and he knew what pleased him, to an extent. Jaskier liked it when Geralt took a room in town rather than camping rough. He liked beets and disliked cabbage. He liked it when Geralt stayed in the common room of an inn to watch him perform rather than taking himself off upstairs or somewhere else, even if he was crushingly critical afterward. He liked regular meals, fine clothes, and baths. He liked adulation, praise, and thrived off crowds of people. That was the confusing part. None of the things that Jaskier liked seemed to be in ready supply at Geralt’s side, yet Jaskier followed after him willingly, eagerly, all the same. If Geralt had known what Jaskier liked about him, it would be easier to provide it if he wanted to, or not, if he didn’t. He would feel more in control. As it was, Geralt felt . . . lost, hopelessly so, like he was adrift in a sea and he didn’t even know where land was, hopelessly in over his head. Even if he had wanted to—to pursue these feelings, to try to win Jaskier for himself, he didn’t have the first idea how to set about doing it. Sure, he was a man, just like Geralt, so a fellow might think that could give him an edge, but Jaskier was so fucking different from him. Geralt wasn’t about to recite poetry or make courtly declarations.

So that didn’t really help—in many ways it did the opposite. Geralt had never made advances on another man before. He’d slept with other men, right enough, but either it had been a mutual decision in the heat of the moment, or the other fellow had made the advances on him.

But he wasn’t going to pursue it, so it hardly mattered. Did it?

While Geralt had been debating with himself and feeling like a coward for it, Jaskier had been stroking one hand over Geralt’s shoulders and tangling it idly in his hair. He rubbed his thumb over a scar on Geralt’s shoulder, and despite the fact that he had hardly any feeling in the ridged skin, Geralt shuddered.

Jaskier hummed a little, and then his nails came down, scratched idly over Geralt’s shoulder and back, over the scars. Geralt sighed, couldn’t help it. It still felt incredible, still felt almost as good as sex. Jaskier dragged his nails across Geralt’s shoulders, gently down over his less injured side. He scratched his nails lightly up and down over his sides a few times, avoiding his wounds, down over his hips, just enough to make Geralt tense and shudder with how that made him want to melt, then slid his palms up along Geralt’s sides and back, dragged his nails down again. Geralt wouldn’t have minded if he’d kept doing that—it made him shiver with how good it felt—but instead Jaskier rubbed gently, idly, at his side with his thumb, then his hands moved back up to Geralt’s neck and shoulders, his hair. He made another humming noise, and then his hands were buried in it again, petting first, then gathering it into bunches. After a few moments of the most incredibly gentle tugs and pulls, tugging gently on his scalp, Geralt realized that Jaskier was braiding it.

He grunted questioningly.

“Hmm, well, I thought perhaps it would be easier for you if I braided your hair,” Jaskier said, his hands still working. The gentle tugs made Geralt’s skin prickle all over somehow with awareness. “After all, you’re sweating quite a bit, and it got awfully tangled last night, and it will keep it off your bandages easier.”

“Don’t need that,” Geralt muttered.

Jaskier laughed. “I know,” he said. “You’ve made quite a statement in that regard with your hair loose while you fight monsters and all of that, and might I say it looks lovely on you. I have absolutely no desire to change your style in earnest. I just thought it might be easier for now.”

Geralt had to admit, that was practical, maybe surprisingly so, for Jaskier. He didn’t complain, just grunted again, and when Jaskier’s hands stilled in his hair, added, “All right,” grudgingly, just to make it clear.

“Excellent,” Jaskier said, and went back to his self-appointed task.

Geralt didn’t want to admit how much he liked it. Jaskier’s hands in his hair, the gentle tugs that made his scalp prickle and tingle, the brushes of his fingers against the back of his neck—it felt good. And just the thought that Jaskier had . . . thought of it, had wanted to do it. That perhaps he liked having his hands in Geralt’s hair, improbable as that seemed. Geralt didn’t let himself dwell on it, but it filled him with a sort of warm quiet sense of . . . well, he wasn’t sure what, just that his whole body seemed to relax under the gentle touches and tugs as Jaskier plaited his hair. He was surprisingly good at it. He finished long before Geralt wanted it to end, and tied it off . . . somehow, before he got up, rooted through one of their bags, and then returned with one of the leather ties Geralt used in his hair, which he tied tightly around the end of the braid.

“There,” Jaskier said, with quiet satisfaction, sliding it forward, over Geralt’s shoulder. “That should stay, through the night at least.” He leaned forward, pressed a kiss the top of Geralt’s head, and Geralt shuddered. All the times Jaskier had kissed him since this had begun . . . he wasn’t sure what to make of that. He didn’t know what Jaskier meant by it. It was probably better not to think about that too much. Easier, anyway. Jaskier patted his shoulder. “Are you going back to sleep?” he asked.

“Mmm,” Geralt agreed.

“Then sleep well,” Jaskier said, tucking a wisp of hair back behind Geralt’s ear. “Don’t let me disturb you. I’ll be going out to perform later, of course, but if you’re still sleeping I won’t wake you. Just rest, all right?”

“Hmm,” Geralt agreed, and rolled over on his stomach. It was currently the most comfortable way to sleep, as long as he kept his weight off the wound in his thigh.

“All right,” Jaskier said softly. “Sleep well, Geralt.” He patted his shoulder, pulled the blankets up over him. Geralt was annoyed at himself for how aware he was when Jaskier got to his feet, and his warmth and weight left the bed.

His resolution to steel himself against his feelings for Jaskier, to push him away, to put his walls back up, wasn’t going well, was it? Geralt wasn’t sure he’d ever felt so helpless in the face of his own feelings. Normally he had so much better control of them than this. As it was, it was all he could do not to show every aching, longing twist of his heart, keep it all safely contained. When had Jaskier, of all people, begun to affect him this way?

But that wasn’t it, was it? Jaskier had always affected him like this, from the very beginning. Geralt had shoved it aside, pushed it to the back of his mind, refused to think on it or dwell on it at all, had concealed it even from himself with annoyance and the irritation that the constant worry for the bard’s safety, especially in the early days, had brought him, but it had always been true. He supposed it was just that the feelings and responses he’d been steadfastly ignoring for fucking years had finally built to the point that he could no longer shove them aside or ignore them, not when he was as weak and vulnerable as this, and Jaskier seemed bent on giving him every gentle tenderness or affectionate touch or care that Geralt had ever wanted or dreamed of in the unclear, half-unformed longings of his darkest, loneliest moments. And the fact that Geralt was needy, that Geralt wanted too much, that he couldn’t be satisfied with Jaskier’s friendship as it was, that wasn’t Jaskier’s problem. Surely, he’d already put the bard through enough. He couldn’t ask for more. Even if, by some impossible chance, Jaskier was willing to give it. Which, surely, he wasn’t. Jaskier clearly knew him well, and that surely meant that Jaskier knew him well enough to know that any further intimacy with Geralt was a losing proposition. Jaskier wasn’t being kind to him for that.

Geralt sighed, shifted, trying to get comfortable in the bed. He again wished that Jaskier might play or sing, because when he did, it was so easy to focus on the music and nothing else. The other man was far enough away now that his heartbeat had merged into the background noises of the room, the surrounding inn, the street outside, and it made Geralt’s head throb to try to pick it out. It was raining outside again; he could hear it. The smell of rain came in through the cracks in the walls, under the shutters. He could hear Jaskier moving around the room. It was a relief when he started humming to himself, brought Geralt’s senses back in, toward him, until it was as if he was surrounded by Jaskier’s voice and the sound of the fire and the rain and nothing else, as if nothing outside of that mattered. Still, Geralt thought he would toss and turn for hours yet.

He didn’t. He was asleep in minutes.

He dreamed, at first, of the rain. He was a boy, back in Kaer Morhen, a stupid teenager, bored out of his skull inside because the rain had washed out the training yard in a muddy avalanche and Vesemir had told him and Eskel not to run on the walls anymore or they’d break their damn fool necks. He was sleeping in a stable next to Roach because he hadn’t had the coin for a room, just for the stabling, and woken from a light sleep because the rain was coming down outside. He was sharing a cave with Jaskier on one of their journeys up to Kaedwen, a cave they’d found back from the road, after Geralt had made a rough windbreak out of branches lashed together, passing a flask of vodka back and forth, and Jaskier was getting drunker and drunker, and until eventually he came around to Geralt’s side of the fire and plopped down next to him, telling him with drunken certainty that he was warm and that he owed it to Jaskier as his friend to share his warmth with him, falling asleep on his shoulder not long afterward. Geralt had put his arm around him and held him there for hours as he slept and his vodka-scented breath drifted across Geralt’s cheek and mingled with his own.

The dream shifted. Jaskier woke again, looked up at him, sleepy and still soft with it, eyes heavy, mouth open slightly. There was an eyelash clinging to his cheek, and not knowing what had come over him, exactly, Geralt brought his hand up, brushed it away with his finger, then his thumb. Jaskier bit his bottom lip, sucked in a breath, and somehow Geralt’s touch shifted, became a caress, he was cupping Jaskier’s cheek, smoothing his thumb over his cheekbone, and breathing in a breath that felt unsteady, and then Jaskier leaned in and—

His hand was on Geralt’s chest, pushing him back into the bed. Bed? They were in an inn, somewhere, every inn they’d ever stayed in, it didn’t matter. The room was warm, there was a fire in the hearth, Jaskier was laughing and his hair looked gold in the firelight. Geralt loved watching him laugh. He was helpless beneath him, against it, as Jaskier moved in, put one knee on the bed, reaching for him, and Jaskier caught his hand, dragged it to his lips and pressed them to the palm, to the broad scarred knuckles so that Geralt felt his laughter on his skin, and said, laughing still, “Patience, patience, Geralt, really, let me get my clothes off, now, I don’t want you ripping them to shreds again,” and Geralt felt the hot, heady rush of anticipation, thought he might very well rip Jaskier’s clothes off him if he didn’t get on the bed this moment, reached for him again—

But now that Geralt was in bed, he was lying face down, just as he had been, head resting on the pillow, Jaskier’s hand on his shoulder, stroking gently over his skin, playing with his hair. Just as they had done before, his hands grew restless, seemed to tire of restricting themselves to Geralt’s shoulders and neck, and wandered down his sides, Jaskier scratching gently over the scars on his shoulders, down over his ribs. In this dream, Geralt was whole, uninjured, no ugly burn or gash or bite out of his thigh to interrupt Jaskier’s gentle touches or to keep Geralt from moving too much for risk of aggravation. Instead, it was Jaskier’s presence, his touch alone, that kept Geralt lying there, face down in bed, showing his back, the vulnerability in the position making his neck prickle out of pure instinct, but, incredibly, not making him uncomfortable in any other way, or eager to move. He felt safe like this, with Jaskier’s hands on his back, stroking gently up and down over the muscle, nails scratching soft downward along his back, both sides of his spine.

Jaskier skimmed his hands down, further and further, pressed the heels of them into Geralt’s arse, just beneath the dip of his waist, and rubbed up, like he was giving him a rub down, then followed that path downwards with his nails. Geralt heard himself groan, felt the warm prickling tingles that followed the press of Jaskier’s hands, his touch, even as he pulled his nails up again. He heard Jaskier’s intake of breath, and he murmured, “You do like that, don’t you?” Geralt could hear the fond smile in his voice and felt himself flush over the back of his neck, even as Jaskier’s hands came up, stroked over the small of his back again, and he dragged his nails down over Geralt’s hips, just as he’d done before. This time, though, in this dream, he didn’t stop, he brought his hands, his nails, all the way down over Geralt’s thighs, then back up along the more sensitive skin inside of his thighs, and Geralt sucked in his breath—only for Jaskier to bypass the hot need between Geralt’s legs entirely and skim his thumb up over the seam of his arse and thigh, up over the round muscle of it.

Geralt gave a protesting noise, and Jaskier just laughed, but then he was leaning in, pressing a kiss to the back of Geralt’s neck, just under his hair, nosing into it, mouth hot and wet and open a little, his lips soft as flower petals, palming over his arse with his hand while he did, and Geralt shuddered, and Jaskier kissed his shoulder, down over his spine, scratching gently over Geralt’s hip and thigh, then smoothing it into a caress, nearly petting him there. Jaskier reached around him, then, slid his hand forward beneath Geralt’s hip, took hold of his hot, hard prick where it was pressing into the bedclothes, kissed at the uppermost slope of Geralt’s shoulder, and Geralt bit his lip against his moan, his gasp, but he couldn’t quite keep it back as Jaskier’s hand tangled in his hair and tugged his head to the side and then he was kissing him, full on the mouth, like Geralt had dreamed, like Geralt had never dared to believe he would in all truth, and his cock throbbed in Jaskier’s firm grip—

And he woke up, starting awake, covered in sweat. He didn’t realize where he was for a moment, actually reached for Jaskier in the bed—and then his thigh twitched against the blankets, rolling him forward instinctively and pressing his hard, wet cock into the wonderful, welcoming pressure of the mattress, sheet warm and clinging to his hot hard length, and Geralt realized with a jolt that sent his slow heartbeat up a notch that he was very much really, actually hard, the sheet twined around his legs wet with sweat.

Shit. Fuck. He dragged in a panting breath, looking around the room, the dream still hazing his mind, wondering if he were lucky enough that Jaskier was downstairs entertaining the supper crowd, feeling hot sweat dripping down the back of his neck, sticking his hair to his skin, still in that damn braid. Except that no, he could smell the other man, hear the quick rapid tripping of his heartbeat—

“Have a nice dream?” It was Jaskier’s voice, amused and teasing and fond and—

Fuck. Fucking _shit_. Damn it all. That was just Geralt’s luck, wasn’t it? His eyes found the bard, sitting at the table, chin propped on his hand. His notebook was open in front of him, but he wasn’t sure if he’d been writing in it. Not that that mattered. Fuck. Geralt had blushed more in the last few days than he had in the last ten years, but he felt himself going hot again, the hot rush of blood to his face. Unfortunately, even with all the blood he’d lost, that somehow didn’t at all deplete the supply in his cock.

“Um,” was all he could think of to say, and it came out strangled, because yeah, it had been one hell of a—of a nice dream, and it had been about _him_ , and—“Fuck,” he said out loud.

Jaskier grinned and laughed and waggled his eyebrows at him. “Was that what it was about?” he said. “You certainly look ready to give someone a good seeing to.”

“Shut up,” Geralt said. His voice rasped, and a jolt of heat went all the way down his spine to his cock like a hand had just tugged on it, at the thought of Jaskier and how he might _see to_ him. He felt hideously embarrassed, exposed, naked in more ways than his flesh being bared before Jaskier’s eyes. The last time he’d been this embarrassed to have a hard cock he’d been fifteen.

“What?” Jaskier asked. “Am I supposed to pretend I’ve never seen you with your cock hard before? That I can’t hear you some nights, looking after yourself? Though by the look on your face right now I suppose you thought I was asleep, did you?”

Geralt wasn’t sure what his face looked like exactly, but yes, he’d tried to be careful to only take himself in hand when Jaskier was asleep, tried to be careful not to fantasize about the other man when he did. He thought he would have noticed if Jaskier had been conscious, his heartrate speeding up, or—but apparently he had gotten too caught up in what he was doing, at least a few times.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” Jaskier said. “It’s not as if you haven’t returned the favor and listened to me, erm, handling myself. I never minded, you know.”

And now Geralt felt like some kind of fucking voyeur. But he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to keep from noticing, when the changes in Jaskier’s scent and his heartbeat and his body temperature were so obvious, the way he would gasp and sometimes give a little low-voiced muffled whimper against his hand or biting his lip to quiet himself—he’d done his damn best to give him his privacy. But there had been times he’d been weak, and just listened, half afraid to move for fear he’d give himself away and Jaskier would, perhaps, be embarrassed or furious with Geralt for listening . . . “I didn’t mean—” he gasped out.

Jaskier just waved his hand. “Geralt, please,” he said, and there was something strange and wistful in his eyes, or was that just Geralt’s imagination? “I didn’t mind. I never mind. I hope you know that you’re welcome any time.”

Now that just made no sense, and why would Geralt have ever thought something so outlandish? How in the fuck could he possibly know that?

But Jaskier was looking at him consideringly now, tilting his head a little, still resting his chin on his fist. “You’re looking awfully uncomfortable,” he said, and his voice came out strange and soft, soft and low and a little thick. Geralt scowled and tugged the blankets up further, trying to hide himself from that gaze that looked strangely sympathetic, strangely insightful, strangely wistful and hard to read, in the dim light from the fire. Geralt swallowed hard, and opened to mouth to say that he wasn’t, at all, uncomfortable, despite how blatantly untrue it was, tugging the blanket a little further over his dick, when Jaskier said, his voice husky and a little hoarse, “Perhaps I could give you a hand?”

“What?” Geralt asked, and it came out of his mouth strangled. His hand clenched into a fist on the blanket.

Jaskier flushed slightly and made an obscene gesture with his hand that was clearly meant to mimic stroking someone off, before he flushed a little darker and turned it into an airy wave of his hand in Geralt’s direction. “You know,” he said. “Give you a hand. Stroke you off. Haven’t you ever, I mean, don’t you,” he swallowed, and Geralt found his eyes fixed on the working of his fine throat, the way he licked his bottom lip, his cock giving a painful throb, “haven’t you ever, you grew up with all those other boys, and surely you helped each other out occasionally? I know at Oxenfurt, well, I mean, I daresay we were free with our affections, but I . . . I’d be happy to. You know.”

“Give me a hand,” Geralt repeated dully. There was a strange roaring in his ears. He felt almost numb, but hot all over at the same time, and his cock certainly knew what it wanted, hot and throbbing somehow even harder at every one of Jaskier’s husky babbling words. He certainly had been given a hand before, and Jaskier wasn’t wrong about Kaer Morhen—he and Eskel had—but that didn’t seem to have any relevance to him and Jaskier, and—and what Jaskier was offering now. Geralt wondered if he were hallucinating. Something in his chest felt like it was seizing up in pain, clenching up tight in his belly.

“Well, yes,” Jaskier said, and he looked very flushed now. He was fair, and it showed easily, even in the dim light. “I mean, I—it looks as if it would be damned uncomfortable for you, as it is. If you twist about one way you’ll pull on your back, the other on your side, can’t brace your leg with your thigh as it is, and you’ve only got one hand to bring yourself off with. But I’ve uh, I’ve got two hands, and I think, I mean, I know my way around a cock.” He swallowed again, gave a jerk of his chin that was apparently supposed to indicate Geralt’s . . . Geralt’s cock. “I’d be happy to, uh, to put that to use on yours.”

Geralt swallowed. “My, uh,” he said. “My.” Jaskier had to be talking about bringing himself off, didn’t he? Though he’d just said he’d stroked off other college boys in Oxenfurt, but . . . . That wasn’t the same thing as . . . . Did he really go in for men? Had he been with men this whole while, while traveling with Geralt, and Geralt had somehow never noticed? Never smelled it on him? He smelled his women on him all the time.

“Cock,” Jaskier said, leaning forward as if he were eager, fingers tapping on the table as if he had to get the excess energy out somehow. “Yes, I, um, I. I’m good with my hands? Can I, Geralt? I could make it good for you. I’d like to make you feel good. You’ve been, you’ve been hurting so much all day, and it always helps, doesn’t it? Getting off? It might help. Help you sleep, help you—help you rest and heal. I’d like to help you . . . .”

“I don’t need your pity,” Geralt said, feeling himself flinch back physically, feeling his face go hot and shame twist in his belly.

“Shit,” Jaskier said, and leaned further forward, his hand clenching loosely on the table. “No, I—I didn’t mean it like that, Geralt.”

“What did you mean by it, then?” Geralt growled, his stomach churning with shame, with humiliation, with the scent of his own disgusting arousal. “You’ve never offered before.”

“For the simple reason that I didn’t think you’d accept!” Jaskier said. “Geralt, I didn’t mean it like that at all. Look at—look at me, won’t you?” It was the pure frustration in his voice that brought Geralt’s head up, back around toward him. Jaskier’s face was flushed red, his hair was falling in his eyes, his mouth was wet and it looked like he’d been gnawing on his bottom lip while Geralt wasn’t looking. His hands were both clenched, one in front of him, the other on the table, but as Geralt watched he spread them wide, spread his arms as if imploring. “It has nothing to do with pity, I assure you,” Jaskier said, moving his hands wildly, gesturing as he talked. “I, as your friend, like you. I want you to feel good. I think you have a truly lovely cock, which I am _sure_ you are aware of. I would be happy, nay, truly honored, to stroke you off. Trust me. I want to, Geralt, or I wouldn’t have offered. Look at me, look in my eyes, and tell me, honestly, have I ever pitied you? Have I ever not respected you? And how often have you known me to offer favors I did not want to perform?”

“You do things you don’t want to do all the time,” Geralt muttered. “Clear up camp.” He waved vaguely around the room. “Perform household chores.”

“Who said I didn’t want to look after you, my dear witcher?” Jaskier said, laughing a little, but almost sadly, wryly. “I never did. I believe I said the opposite. Quite a few times, if I recall. And anyway, I do, occasionally, perform the odd bit of business I don’t wish to, but I don’t offer to do those things, do I?”

Geralt swallowed, hard, and it almost hurt. He felt hot all over. He formed his one good hand into a fist, then lay back against the covers, carefully. He felt almost as if his body wasn’t his own, as if he was floating outside himself, and the blankets felt strange and cool against his skin, sticking to the sweat on his shoulder and side. “I,” he said, and swallowed again. “Um, Jask . . . .”

Jaskier leaned in, eyes bright with interest. “Yes?” he said.

“If you’d, uh, truly like to,” Geralt said, moistened his lips again, tried to get some moisture back in his mouth, swallowed. He felt so incredibly hot. Why did he feel so awkward? He hadn’t been this awkward since he was fourteen and he and Eskel had been fumbling around in the stables. Fuck, he probably hadn’t even been this awkward then. “If, I mean, I wouldn’t. Mind.” He gestured awkwardly at himself. “It’d be nice to. I mean. Thank you.”

“Oh, thank the gods,” Jaskier said, and while Geralt was still trying to figure out what in the hell _that_ meant, he had already left his chair and crossed the room in what felt not even enough time for Geralt’s heart to thud once in his chest. Jaskier was in bed with him in another moment, long before Geralt felt ready for it, and as he straddled him to crawl over him in the bed, a wash of his scent swept over Geralt, musky-thick and aroused and intense with the scent of Jaskier. Geralt felt sweat prickle on his face, on his shoulders, down his neck and on his back, gulped. Jaskier still looked very flushed, even as he slid off of Geralt and into the bed, and then he did the most inexplicable thing of all—he put both hands on Geralt’s shoulders, leaned in, and pressed a kiss to his forehead, brushing right over one of his scars. Again. Geralt felt his lips part in surprise and swallowed hard, again, wondered what his face had done in that moment, if he even wanted to know. Jaskier’s hand came down, settled at the hinge of his jaw, curled gently around it, propping Geralt’s head up, and he leaned forward until their foreheads touched, his flushed warm, Geralt’s hot and sweaty, pressed against each other. His breath was feathering over Geralt’s lips, and he smelled of mulled wine. “I’ll look after you,” he murmured. “I’ll make it good for you. I promise.”

Geralt swallowed again. It seemed to be suddenly much more difficult to swallow than it usually was. “Are you drunk, Jask?” he murmured, thinking that that just made sense, that of course that was why Jaskier was doing all this, offering this, even though it made no sense at all that he would, he was drunk and probably horny, and if Geralt’s cock didn’t like it that was its problem—he wasn’t going to take advantage of Jaskier if he’d been drinking.

Jaskier laughed a little, eyes slipping closed, but didn’t move away. He licked his bottom lip. “Just a little bit warm from the wine at supper,” he said, “I promise, witcher. Not so drunk I won’t remember this in the morning. What, would you like some?”

Geralt felt himself go hot again, all over. “No wine, no,” he mumbled. “Just want you.” And then flinched at his own unforgiveable stupidity, the humiliation making him go hot in a different way, made his erection, even, start to wilt, as he flamed hot all over.

“Oh,” Jaskier said, gasping it out as if he’d been struck, biting his bottom lip, his eyes opening again and going wide, his cheeks flushing, looking up prettily from under his eyelashes into Geralt’s face—then, he looked down between them, first at Geralt’s lips—his eyes lingered there, or did they? Geralt turned his own eyes away, couldn’t be sure, still burning with shame, with awkwardness—then down his chest, to his groin, and he blurted, “Oh, no, no, no, no, I am not letting you go soft on me now, don’t you dare,” and he closed his hand around him in the same breath.

Geralt gasped despite himself, groaned, felt his head fall back, couldn’t help it, couldn’t help the way his hips flexed to push himself up into Jaskier’s hand. He gripped hard into his pillow, tried to steady himself.

“Oh, lovely, yes, good, good, good,” Jaskier said, sounding breathless. “That’s beautiful, you’re beautiful, you know that? You’re very sensitive, aren’t you? Firmed right up again for me.”

“Jaskier,” Geralt got out between his teeth. “Shut up.” He thought if he had to hear Jaskier call him beautiful again, sweet and effusive and lover-like, when he knew it wasn’t fucking true, he might feel something break in his chest, right down the middle. And then there was the pure tease of it, the physical pleasure. Jaskier’s hand wasn’t even moving, but it was soft and yet callused on his oh-so-sensitive skin and his cock was aching and it was all he could do not to rut forward into the loose hold he had given him.

Jaskier laughed breathily, beautifully. “Oh, that I’m not good at,” he said. “I’m sorry. Look, would you rather face me? Face away? It’s up to you, whatever you’d like, however you’d like it. It’s your cock, after all.”

Sure, Geralt thought, it was his cock, but he’d rarely felt less in control of it than he did just then. His whole body ached, still, but it was as if every other ache on his body had suddenly fled, narrowed in to be concentrated on his cock alone, and it was throbbing in beautiful, wanting, agony. Jaskier was just as giving, as attentive, as sensitive and lavish with his partners as he’d imagined, and Geralt felt already undone, just by the loose, teasing touch of his palm around his prick. He wished Jaskier hadn’t given him such a choice. How was he meant to choose? Safer was facing away, certainly, to—to hide his face, so that he could put up some barrier between them, between his emotions and Jaskier’s far too expressive eyes and face, so that he would not have to know who it was handling him, could only imagine the expression on Jaskier’s features, but then he could imagine the bard’s expression shifting into one of impatience, of disgust, and—he shouldn’t, he shouldn’t want to look at him, face him, he shouldn’t, not at all, he knew that, but then he thought that perhaps he’d never have this again, for why would he, that this would be his only chance, and—

Geralt was selfish and stupid and self-destructive, after all. He pushed himself awkwardly up on his elbow, rolled until he was on his other side, and settled, hesitantly, uncertain despite himself, down into the bed. He barely dared to look up, to meet Jaskier’s eyes, but when he did, they were full of a warmth and affection he didn’t think he could have even imagined for himself, and he caught his breath. “Oh, you love,” Jaskier said, smiling softly, a little crookedly. “You lovely thing. Thank you.” Geralt felt himself starting to flush, not sure why Jaskier would be thanking him for the chance to look into his ugly, inhuman face while he tended to him, off balance all over again, more so than he’d ever been in a fight. But it was hard to focus on anything at all when Jaskier was smiling at him like that, and _right there_ , and his hand tightened, firmed up, on Geralt’s cock, started to move, and the fingers of his other hand came up, lingered on the side of Geralt’s face, callused and sweet points of heat, of fire, that spread through Geralt’s entire body. When Jaskier leaned forward again, and Geralt could feel the soft warmth of his breath feather over his own lips again, so close and so real, he whined despite himself, then flushed deeply at the humiliating sound.

Jaskier just smiled, pushed Geralt's hair in the new braid back behind his shoulder, stroked a finger up over the bridge of Geralt’s nose, back down over his cheek, as if he’d noticed the noise but somehow didn’t find it embarrassing, or deserving of mockery, or pathetically needy, or anything surprising at all. “You need a shave,” he murmured, rubbing his thumb against the stubble starting on Geralt’s face, along the line of what would be beard if he let it grow much longer. “Shall I give you one tomorrow?” He thumbed gently over Geralt’s cheek, over his lips, and Geralt tried so damn hard not to moan, but his lips parted, and he pressed them wet and hot to Jaskier’s thumb despite himself, even as Jaskier’s other thumb was rubbing slippery wetness over the sensitive head of Geralt’s cock. He must have been leaking like a fountain already, with the way Jaskier was smearing it around over the blunt, sensitive tip of him, and Geralt flinched, gasped hard to bite back a cry that wanted to shake his whole body. Jaskier’s slim hand was firm around him as he squeezed, tugged, carefully pulled so that Geralt’s foreskin rolled back entirely, revealed the hot hard tip of him to the air, then began to move. His hand stroked him beautifully for one, two, three strokes, then slid down to cup him at his base and squeeze. Geralt bit his bottom lip. “Goodness, sweet Melitele, you’re big,” Jaskier gasped, still smiling. “I thought I was going to need two hands for this, and so I do. What, do they put something in the food at that witcher school of yours or is this just you?”

Geralt felt himself flushing deeper. “Shut up,” he managed to grind out, and it felt like his voice came right out of his chest, deep and raspy, like it had shaken something loose.

Jaskier smiled even wider, moved his thumb away from Geralt’s mouth, brushing it over his bottom lip one last time, then brushing his knuckles gently down along his cheek. “Ah, ah,” he said. “Like I said, not exactly my strong suit.” Geralt bit his lip against the loss of that thumb at his mouth—it had been something, at least, to remind him not to say anything stupid, to keep his damn stupid mouth shut. He sucked in his breath instead, felt it as he inhaled it in hard through his nostrils, feeling like a fucking horse the way he was huffing. Jaskier, though, didn’t seem to notice, or care. He leaned in, and trailed his lips over Geralt’s jaw, leaving what felt like a line of pure fire there, for all the sweet softness of his touch. Geralt felt himself stiffen and jerk beneath him, and Jaskier made a soft noise, a gentle little shh-ush-sh-ush sound of susurrating noise, moved down to press another kiss to the soft hollow of Geralt’s throat, wet and soft and hot at the same time, pressing one hand against his chest, as if to calm him, stroking lightly over his skin at the same time he stroked at his cock with his other hand.

Geralt wasn’t sure how he was meant to take this, any of it, how he was meant to respond. He wanted to whimper, he wanted to hide his face, he wanted to close his eyes and just sink into it, he wanted to press Jaskier close, wrap his arms around him and crush him close against his chest and bury his nose against his neck, in his hair, behind his ear where he applied his scent, and never let him go. As it was, he seemed to operate on instinct—one hand wrapped around Jaskier, held him at his back, his hand opened, slid open-palmed down his spine to rest at the dip of it, just above his arse, and Geralt realized with a jolt that he was holding Jaskier in a mirror of how they had woken up that morning, except that now Jaskier was pressing soft, wet, open-mouthed kisses up along his collarbone, mouthing at his skin and pulling at his cock with his hand, and that—it felt impossible. It felt surreal. Like a dream, or—or—or like a hallucination. Was this just a fever dream? Geralt found himself panting, even though he shouldn’t need to to get enough air.

“Shh,” Jaskier murmured against his neck, then pulled back, took a deep breath. His mouth looked wet and swollen, red—red with kisses. Geralt felt like he was drowning. His eyes must have been wild, because Jaskier reached out, took his face in his hand, not removing the one at his cock, gently, so gently, caressed Geralt’s cheekbone with his thumb. “It’s all right,” he murmured, and his voice was so thick and so husky, so raspy, it was almost like Geralt’s. “Not to sound ridiculous, or anything, but—but—Geralt, I would, I would never, ever hurt you. You’re safe with me, all right? I won’t . . . I . . . I . . . trust me. All right?”

“This doesn’t . . . it doesn’t feel real,” Geralt said, murmured it, before he thought, and it came out husky, hitching and rough, and Jaskier smiled, just a little.

“I know,” he said. “You’re feverish and out of your head and you were dreaming and you’ve been ill, and you haven’t come in weeks, have you? Don’t worry. It’ll be all right.” He laid his head on the pillow next to Geralt’s, shifted until his head was pillowed on Geralt’s shoulder, the better one, nestled in against him, breath huffing over Geralt’s sweaty shoulder, making him shiver with chill against his sweat, and then he was skimming his other hand down again, over Geralt’s chest, over his belly. Like this, his scent was all around Geralt, all over the bed, all up against him, all over . . . him, and Geralt felt dizzy, hot and dizzy, drowning in light, covered in fire. “It is real, though,” he murmured, and somehow his voice sounded strange, choked and just—strange, but then he was looking up at Geralt through his eyelashes and licking his own palm, spitting into it, and Geralt couldn’t think about anything else but that and the throbbing of his cock in Jaskier’s hand.

He groaned, pulled Jaskier closer with his hand at his back, and Jaskier grinned up at him. “Patience, patience,” he said, but then he reached down with his other, wetter hand and wrapped it around the tip of Geralt’s cock, pulling up with the other from the base as he did, and Geralt grunted out a breath of pure pleasure into his hair. It sounded like he’d been punched, even to him. Jaskier’s head was resting against his shoulder, and his hair was ruffled and sweaty and he could smell his scent so strongly there, could smell the musky depth of Jaskier’s _own_ arousal, and—Geralt kept trying to focus on that, but the way Jaskier’s hands were working him made thinking about anything else an impossibility. Jaskier’s lips brushed against his collarbone again, against his shoulder, and Geralt shivered, felt goosebumps rising on his skin at that gentle touch of wet lips, wondered if—wondered—had that been—did Jaskier kiss everyone he went to bed with, or should Geralt make something of it or—he was—

“I feel like I should make this more of a show,” Jaskier murmured against Geralt’s throat, “really work you over, but that feels as if it would be cruel of me. You don’t need that, do you? And it’s not about me showing off, or my ego. You’ve been waiting long enough. Let me just—” he gave Geralt’s cock another long drag upward with his palm tight around him, and Geralt let out a guttural groan against his ear, didn’t mean to “—that’s it, perfect, that’s lovely,” Jaskier panted against his chest, “I just want to make you feel good, just let me make you feel good,” he mumbled, and his hand slid down, pulled at Geralt’s balls, rolled them gently in his hand, squeezing lightly, even as his other hand worked his cock. His face felt hot against Geralt’s chest, and Geralt found himself wanting to pull him closer, push his hand up into his hair. It was unforgivably stupid, but he let himself, and he felt Jaskier shudder all over, up against him, felt him choke a little and catch his breath, even as the rhythm of his hands never faltered.

He felt like he should let Jaskier know how good it was, how much better he felt than he had in—in—a long time, but it was hard to find the words. He seemed to spend forever searching for them, and then he just mumbled, low and heavy, into Jaskier’s ear, “S’ good.”

“Oh!” Jaskier said, breathless, choked and sounding surprised. “Oh, that—that’s wonderful, that’s—that’s wonderful, Geralt, I’m so glad, thank you so much—that was weird, Jask, why are you thanking him, anyway, I’m very glad, now, just—let’s see—right—”

Geralt had to admit that what Jaskier said was accurate—he knew his way around a cock. Around Geralt’s, anyway. He knew just how to touch him, it seemed, just how to make it feel good. It took only a few more seconds, and then he was lost, and the pleasure was impossibly good, impossibly overwhelming, and Geralt didn’t think of anything at all but how good it felt, how good it was, how good he felt, for what felt like a long, long time. He must have closed his eyes. He thought he might have blacked out, actually.

When he came back to himself, and managed to open eyes that felt heavy, and sticky, it was because he became aware of Jaskier’s hand on his hip. He smelled—well, incredible, sweat and musk and human man and Jaskier all together, a lot of scents jumbled up that to Geralt just meant one thing, one _person_. He smelled of want, of arousal, but it was clear that he wasn’t getting himself off, he was resting one hand on Geralt’s hip, stroking his thumb along the skin, and not moving much. Geralt opened his eyes and looked for him.

“Oh,” Jaskier said, eyes flying up to Geralt’s face, a moment later. “You’re back. Hi. Hello.” He smiled, lopsidedly, sweet and a little awkward, a little nervous. “Did that feel good? It looked like it felt good.” He finished running a wet cloth over Geralt’s thighs, up over his belly.

Geralt caught his wrist with his hand before he could move to toss the cloth away. “Very good,” he said. “That was—” he took a deep breath.

“I’ve never had anything but glowing reviews,” Jaskier said, and Geralt shook his head at him, had to close his eyes and smile.

“You make it hard to want to compliment you, sometimes,” he said.

“Oooh, that means it was a compliment,” Jaskier said, but his voice was very ragged, uneven, his breathing all a mess. If they’d been in the field, Geralt would have checked to see if he were wounded, but there was, of course, no reason for it now, no smell of blood. So why did he sound so unsteady?

“Yes, lark,” he said, because what he could admit, if only to himself, was a pet name, always made Jaskier light up. “Thank you. It was. It was. I. It was . . . .” He realized he didn’t have the first clue what to say. What did you say to your best friend, who you might be in love with, always assuming you even knew what that emotion felt like and it wasn’t just some hallucination brought on by fever, after he gave you one of the best handjobs you’d ever had? “You were right,” he said, finally.

“Oh?” Jaskier asked, raising his eyebrows and propping himself up on one hand. “And how’s that?”

“You know your way around a cock,” Geralt said.

Jaskier grinned, but it was—strange, not his usual bright smile that lit any room like sunshine, and it left Geralt feeling off-kilter, vaguely alarmed. He reached out, touched his thumb to Jaskier’s mouth before he thought at all, as if feeling the shape of that expression on his face would help. His mouth was wet. Jaskier froze beneath him utterly, his eyes going wide. His heartbeat sped up, his pulse fluttering like a hummingbird’s. Geralt yanked his hand away as if it burned.

“What’s wrong, Jask?” he demanded.

Jaskier gulped. “Umm,” he said. “Nothing at all, my, um, my—Geralt. I’m. I’m fine.”

Geralt blinked, pushed that strange phrasing away to deal with later, and narrowed his eyes at him. “You’re not fine,” he said. “You’re frightened. What is it?”

“Yes, I’m fine,” Jaskier said, “I just, um, I admit that I dally with men to my large, very intimidating friend who very much prefers women every day and then, uh, get him off, I—I’m fine, there’s nothing to worry about, not at all, I mean, as I said, you’re always the first to argue that the—those different from us should be, should live in peace, so . . . .”

Geralt blinked again. What? “I like men,” he blurted out.

“You, uh. You. You what?” Jaskier said, looked about as confused as Geralt felt, now. Well, at least it was mutual now.

“I like men,” Geralt said. “I sleep with them. Not as often as with women. I thought you didn’t.” He felt himself flushing again. “I never smell them on you.”

“Wait,” Jaskier said. “You can actually _smell_ —you know what, never mind. That’s . . . kind of hot. Please forget I said that. Melitele, I’m. A mess. Shut up, Jask. I. Well. Um.”

Geralt raised his eyebrows at him to convey he was waiting for an answer.

“I don’t sleep with men around you,” Jaskier said, nearly all in one breath. “It never felt like—I mean I felt like—I—I shouldn’t, so I just. Um. Didn’t. Don't.”

Geralt frowned. He wasn’t sure he liked the implications of that one bit. He reached out, let his fingertips just brush against Jaskier’s face, and was again, greeted by him stilling like a frightened rabbit, his heartbeat thrumming in his chest. “Do you think I’m such a beast,” he growled, “and a bigot? Did you think I’d _hurt_ you, after you did that for me?”

“Some, um.” Jaskier licked his bottom lip, looked up at the ceiling, the wall, down at the bedclothes, fidgeted at them with his fingers. “No. I didn’t. Not really. Not _you_. But some men who, who enjoy women, um, they’re happy to uh, receive the pleasure, but they don’t like being reminded afterwards who they took it with. If you follow me.”

Geralt had experienced that himself. He wished that Jaskier hadn’t. He scowled, felt a hot surge of rage, had to struggle not to bare his teeth. “If anyone ever hurt you . . . .”

“You’ll rip them limb from limb, is that it?” Jaskier said, and shook his head. “Geralt, please. We were stupid boys. They didn’t know what they really wanted any better than I did. And if some fellow or other does hit me in the face after I suck him off in the future, I will be sure to keep you informed.”

“Do that,” Geralt gritted out, not sure why he suddenly felt so angry. Maybe because—well, if Jaskier wanted to be sucking cocks, at least Geralt wouldn’t hit him afterwards. Maybe the bard could do worse than Geralt, after all.

Jaskier was very flushed, now. “Yes, well,” he said. “That’s, um, that’s not exactly what I meant when I said—well, never mind.” He sat up, abruptly.

Geralt would have followed him and sat up as well, if he’d been just a little more healed. As it was, he reached out, caught Jaskier’s hip with his hand so he couldn’t move too far away. The other man shuddered visibly, bit his bottom lip, and the scent of his arousal spiked.

Geralt would address that in a moment. “What did you mean?” he asked.

“Mmm,” Jaskier said. He was fidgeting with his hands again, pulling at a loose thread on his trousers. “Not sure I want to get into that, my friend, sorry. So sorry.”

Geralt frowned, feeling—unaccountably hurt, and empty, like he’d just lost something inside himself he hadn’t even known he had. “You don’t trust me enough?” he said.

“What?” Jaskier said. He shivered again. “No, it’s . . . it’s not that.” He looked at Geralt, sighed, and smiled, leaned forward and brushed loose strands of hair, shorter than some of the others, that had come loose from the braid, off Geralt’s forehead. His hand lingered, thumb sliding gently over his skin, fingers spreading out gently over his brow, up against his hairline, then he sighed again and brought it down and away. “It’s not that,” he repeated softly.

“Yes, it is,” Geralt said.

“I beg your pardon?” Jaskier said, with the soft hint of smile starting on his lips.

“It is,” Geralt insisted, halfway sure that he was about to get into an argument about philosophy he was in no way prepared to have with his intellectual friend, but determined to make his point all the same. “If there’s something you can’t tell me, or won’t, it’s because you’re afraid of how I’ll react, or you don’t know how I’ll react, or you do and you don’t want to deal with it. So. You don’t trust me.”

Jaskier stared at him, his eyes wide. His pulse was fluttering in his throat, Geralt could see it. He swallowed, then swallowed again. His flush crept up from his cheeks over his forehead, down over his neck to his chest, what Geralt could see of it beneath his open shirt. “Um,” he said. “Er. I.” He took a deep breath. “Well,” he said, and smiled a little, casting his eyes down. “I should know better than to argue with you at a time like this,” he said. “I always underestimate you. It’s just—I.” He closed his eyes. “It’s not that I don’t trust you,” he said, very quietly. “You know I trust you with my life. I have done, many times. But I, I just, I decided a . . . a bit ago that this was something I shouldn’t burden you with.” He opened his eyes again, smiled a little, leaned in, touched Geralt’s face with gentle fingertips. “You carry so many burdens, dear friend,” he said. “I don’t wish to add to them. That’s all.” He leaned forward then, and brushed another soft kiss along Geralt’s brow, and for a moment Geralt thought he might weep with the sweetness of it, though he was still utterly lost as to what the hell Jaskier was even talking about.

He frowned, though, as the moment passed, as Jaskier moved away, and reached out to catch his wrist. “Hey,” he said. “If there’s something bothering you, I—”

Jaskier laughed and dropped his head. “Geralt,” he said. “You’re so—you’re so—” Geralt could think of a great many things to finish that sentence, but this time, at least, he refrained from jumping to conclusions, and just raised his eyebrows again. He never found out, though, because Jaskier just made a desperate noise and ran one hand back through his hair. “Melitele help me,” he said, sounding rather desperate.

“What is it?” Geralt asked, alarmed now. He let his hand gentle, ran it along Jaskier’s arm. “Did I—did I do something wrong? Did I do something to hurt you?” His insides felt twisted up and aching at the thought. He hadn’t meant to, not at all, not lately, at least. He hadn’t really been trying to drive Jaskier off for a long while now, and perhaps that was selfish of him, but . . . .

“Gods, no,” Jaskier said. He scrubbed at his face with his free hand, ran it back through his hair. “Geralt, I’m—I’m—I’m so very fond of you, that’s all.”

Geralt stared at him. “Yeah,” he said. “As a friend.”

Jaskier stared back. “I, um,” he said, and licked his bottom lip. “What?”

“As a, a friend,” Geralt said. “You made that damn clear. You must have said it at least—at least fifty times since we got to this fucking inn.” The disbelief on Jaskier’s face made him growl the words out. What was he giving him that look for? His stupid heart was squeezing tight, thumping in his chest, even though he hadn’t given it any damn permission.

“I, ah,” Jaskier said. He tugged at his own hair for a moment, dragged his hand down over his face, licked at his bottom lip, scratched at his own jaw. “I suppose I did. I mean, yes, of course, I did, Geralt, that’s so.”

“So,” Geralt said, exasperated and heartsore, that now he had to explain the bard’s own feelings to him, apparently, “what?”

Jaskier took a deep breath, a deep, deep breath, clearly with all the impressive lung capacity he possessed, and let it out, slowly. He licked his bottom lip again. He was still very, very flushed, his cheeks flaming red, his whole body lit up with it, his heart thudding fast and hard, still. “I,” he said, after a long moment. “I, um, it’s. It’s just. I, all right, as it happens, I didn’t, I, um, don’t sleep with other men around you because I, uh, when I’m around you—it’s—it’s you I happen to want, and any other man just seemed like, like, like, I don’t know, a shadow in comparison, and it didn’t seem fair, that’s all.” He wasn’t looking at Geralt at all, except at the end of that little speech, when he shot him a sidelong, uncertain glance from under his eyelashes.

“Want,” Geralt said, and his voice grated thick, wore itself to nearly nothing just on that word. When he tried again it broke. “Want. Want me.”

“I’m sorry,” Jaskier said, wrapping his arms around himself now. “I’m sorry, I tried not to, well—no, I didn’t, I didn’t try very hard at all, but I am sorry for it, and I know you prefer woman, I, I shouldn’t have done this, but I was—Goddess, I was weak, I just, I wanted, I wanted to, to be the one to make you feel good, just this, this once, to be the one to, to give you bliss, to ease the pain, you’ve been so miserable, I’m sorry, I took advantage of you, I’m sure you’ll be angry, I—I have no excuse, except that it was done out of the, the purest feelings of, of affection and—and l—”

“Jaskier,” Geralt said, feeling a hot, sudden surge of fondness. “Shut up.”

Jaskier bit his lip and, incredibly, possibly for only the sixth time in their entire acquaintance, did so upon his request.

Geralt felt—hot all over, and strange, soft, like all his insides had melted into liquid. All right, he thought. Perhaps Jaskier didn’t _love_ him like one did a lover, but what did that mean? Geralt wasn’t even sure he himself could love, or knew what it meant to feel it. He wasn’t sure he could feel love, as humans did. So what did it matter? If Jaskier wanted him—and the man was radiating lust, he smelled of it so strongly Geralt was half surprised it wasn’t leaking from him like his sweat—and he cared for him, deep and real enough to say—to say all that, such sweet words, all for him—then what of it? He would give Jaskier what he wanted, if he wanted it, and they’d see if he wanted it in truth, if he continued to want it. Want him.

“You want me,” he said, and something in the rough, gravelly tone of it got Jaskier’s attention, because he brought his head up, looked toward Geralt, licked his bottom lip again.

“Oh, yes,” he murmured, and his lovely tenor was almost as rough as Geralt’s voice in that moment.

“How long?” Geralt asked.

“Um,” Jaskier said, and his hands clenched on his thighs, played loosely with the fabric of his trousers. “I, err. From the, uh, the beginning?”

“So you were flirting,” Geralt said, and incredibly, felt himself give a hoarse laugh at the realization. “You saw a big, hulking, inhuman beast sitting in the corner and thought, oh, yes, that one, he’s sure to give me a rogering I won’t soon forget, is that it?”

Jaskier flushed. “Well, I wouldn’t have put it _that_ way,” he said, somehow almost primly despite his wide-ranging romantic history and the fact that he’d just brought Geralt off spectacularly. “I thought, _how is it my impossible luck that the most attractive man for absolutely miles around didn’t throw any food at me whatsoever, and can I use that to speak to him_?”

“But then when you realized I was a witcher . . .” Geralt said, and let himself trail off, because when Jaskier had realized, he had apparently decided to travel with him for. Well, for a decade, off and on. Which still didn’t make sense.

“When I realized you were a witcher, I was fascinated,” Jaskier said. He was still flushed very red and not quite meeting Geralt’s eyes. “The point of this recitation is . . . .?”

“Jask,” Geralt said, delighted. “Are you—are you _embarrassed_?”

“Oh, great,” Jaskier said. “This is just great. I’ve only been wanting you for years, and now that you know, you’re just going to sit there, and, and _mock_ me, well, plenty of people go in for a quick wit and a charming smile, you know, we can’t all be made of muscle and look like—like—like desire made flesh, so if you are quite finished—”

Geralt rubbed his thumb over the quick, thudding pulse in Jaskier’s wrist, then used his hold on it to pull Jaskier toward him at the same time he rolled himself over, pinning him to the bed neatly before the other man even realized what was going on. He yelped and squirmed when he did, then rapidly went still, probably realizing simultaneously that Geralt was still bandaged and also that the squirming wasn’t doing anything to prevent Jaskier’s clearly hot, hard cock from pressing up deliciously into Geralt’s stomach. “You—you need to stay still,” Jaskier said, clearly trying to sound firm and yet sounding incredibly, delightfully flustered. “You’ll open your wounds, I’ve put so much work into them, Geralt, you—”

“They’re fine,” Geralt dismissed, even though his entire body was still aching. It seemed spectacularly unimportant just then. He brought his hands up, both of them, and pressed them into the mattress on either side of Jaskier’s head, picked up his uninjured palm and used it to gently move tangled locks of hair away from Jaskier’s face. “I’m one of those people,” he said. “I do go in for it. Do you not have any idea?”

“Wh-wh-what?” Jaskier whispered, his mouth falling open. His hands, which had been raised, not quite touching Geralt, fell back to the bed. “I. You. I. Geralt. What?” His eyes were wide, his face starting to light with a much more pleasant flush, pink to his ears. Geralt found it adorable. Lovely. Precious. Perfect. He covered Jaskier’s open palm with his own, and was gratified, warmed down to his feet, something small and warm and light starting to glow in his guts, in his belly, when Jaskier slid his slim, strong, callused fingers up, entwined them with Geralt’s and squeezed.

“You,” Geralt said, and it came out so low, so deep, that he felt the vibration of it pass through his chest into Jaskier’s. “I find you . . . .” was there even a word for what he found Jaskier? Bright, frustrating, annoying, gilding his life like sun on the river or the little yellow flowers he’d taken his name from in the meadow. He swallowed. “Lovely,” he managed.

 _Lovely_ , Jaskier repeated, just mouthing the word under him, his eyes blown huge, dark and wet in the low light.

“Pleasing,” Geralt said, and it rasped, hoarse in his throat. “Wonderful. My pretty little lark, with his lovely voice, and his fine things, the famous poet, the famous lover, who everyone wants to bed, and he wants me, somehow.” He shook his head, swallowed hard. “Come on now, Jask, how was I meant to figure that?”

“I,” Jaskier said, and he was beaming now, his face lit up like a summer’s day. Geralt felt warm from it. “I didn’t actually think I was being subtle, you know?” He licked his bottom lip. “I rather thought I was, I was flirting with you outrageously and you just didn’t care to know it. Because you . . . you didn’t feel the same. Oh, goddess, my dear White Wolf, take pity on me. You mean it? You do want me? Really and truly?”

Instead of answering, Geralt leaned forward and pressed his lips, intently, fervently, insistently, to Jaskier’s.

His lips parted instantly under his, his mouth opened to let him in, he tasted of mulled wine and smelled of himself, and Geralt felt like he was falling, falling forward into him, like he might never resurface, and he couldn’t find it within himself to care.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time to earn that explicit rating.

Geralt had kissed Jaskier recklessly, wildly, heedless and unthinking. It had been at least half pure instinct, and what of his mind had been working had just been full of a desperate thought that whatever he felt for the other man, perhaps kissing him, the way he did so few of his bed partners, would somehow show him that without him having to say it aloud, show Jaskier the feelings he wasn’t even sure if he understood himself. But as soon as he did it, he felt a surge of fear, of terror, really, that he had forgotten himself, gone too far, that while Jaskier might, inexplicably, feel attraction for an inhuman, mutated beast like him, that didn’t mean he wanted him pawing all over him, didn’t mean he wanted to _kiss_ Geralt’s hideous mouth like he would that of a lover, like he might a pretty noble lady he might take to his bed. He shouldn’t have presumed, he thought, so fucking stupid, and when he got hurt by it would be all his own stupid fault, because he’d forgotten, he’d forgotten and taken an intimacy he couldn’t expect others to share with him, even when he paid for it— He was afraid Jaskier would pull away in another moment, wipe his mouth, and tell Geralt what he’d prefer him to be doing with his own, but he refused to pull away. Pulling away would hardly—would hardly show Jaskier how he felt, anyway. He was going to have his kiss, fuck it all, because after all Jaskier had said, surely he’d allow him the liberty at least this once, and then he’d let Jaskier do what he willed with him, whatever he willed with him—

But that fear was immediately put to flight as Jaskier gasped eagerly under him, and his mouth opened for Geralt, willing, giving, wet and hot and wonderful, his fingers clasping tight around Geralt’s. He arched up under him, chest pressing into Geralt’s, his hand, the one not still clasped around Geralt’s in the bed, coming up, sliding over the side of Geralt’s neck, pushing back into the hair he’d put into its braid. His fingers dug in, scratching wonderfully, and Geralt groaned, into the hot wet mouth that was so welcoming beneath him. Jaskier slid his other hand up over Geralt’s forearm, squeezed his bicep in a way that made him shudder, and then both hands were rubbing at his neck, sliding around to link behind it, as Jaskier tilted his head, deepened the kiss still further, giving Geralt his tongue, all wet bright wonderful heat that sent a rush of tingling pleasure down Geralt’s spine, heat that spread all through him until he was dizzy. He couldn’t think if he’d ever had _anyone_ kiss him with such wild, enthusiastic abandon, not even Eskel, in their youthful days, and they’d done most things with wild abandon back then.

Jaskier linked his hands at the back of Geralt’s neck, turned his head, into the kiss, until his mouth slid, open-mouthed and hot, against Geralt’s, their lips coming together even more perfectly, like a key fitting into a lock, and—and opening every door, because Geralt _felt_ opened by it, by the kiss, opened and unlocked, Jaskier’s eager mouth on his a searing heat lighting up his every nerve, across his whole body, even as Jaskier’s fingers curled in his hair, fingertips pressing into the back of his neck, the base of his skull, his tongue curling dizzyingly into Geralt’s mouth, against his own, teasing against his bottom lip and his teeth and then lapping into his mouth again. Geralt found himself curling the fingers of his good hand into Jaskier’s hair where it tousled against the bed under the two of them, rubbing his thumb against his forehead, along his hairline, feeling the beating of the other man’s pulse under rough fingertips as gentle as he could make them at the soft skin at his temple, as Jaskier pulled his head forward, downwards against his own mouth, hands coaxing and caressing at the back of Geralt’s neck, along his jaw and the base of his skull. He was panting, his breaths heaving in his chest, and Geralt could taste them on his own tongue, felt undone as Jaskier swept his tongue with breathless assurance over his own, wet and hot and—his fingers were digging into Geralt’s hair, caressing, insistent, and Geralt felt a shudder work its way through his shoulders, down his spine.

Jaskier’s mouth fit so perfectly under his that Geralt felt as if he couldn’t remember how to breathe, how to not kiss Jaskier, how to do anything else at all. He could feel his heart pounding, slow and even compared to Jaskier’s but quick and hard for him, where he was pressed against Jaskier’s chest, could feel Jaskier’s heart tripping and thundering like the roaring crash of a waterfall in comparison, against his chest, under his fingers in his hair, against his temple, against the pulse in his neck. Jaskier moaned, loud and unrestrained, into his mouth, arched up against him again, pressing them even closer, and Geralt found himself gasping, loud in his own ears. He felt the dizzying scrape of Jaskier’s teeth on his lip, the soft sting of a bite, and realized he was smiling against his mouth, dizzy and delighted that the bard had dared to bite him that way. He dared himself, to return the favor, biting softly at Jaskier’s soft lower lip, and was rewarded with a loud groan into his mouth, a full body shudder of the long, lithe form under him, fingers curling into his hair and clenching tight. That made Geralt shudder himself, as if to reflect Jaskier’s own motion, and he turned his head, pressed ever closer into the kiss, into the welcome of Jaskier’s mouth.

It was minutes later, or it must have been, when Geralt finally pulled away from the touch of Jaskier’s eager mouth, simply too dizzy to keep going, panting and feeling weak, dragging in air, feeling overcome, hot and dizzy and wrung out in a way he never did in a fight. Jaskier moaned, a needy little sound of loss and want, and it went straight to Geralt’s groin, curling hot around his cock, in his stomach, as Jaskier bucked up against him again. His eyes fluttered open to soft blue slits under dark chestnut eyelashes. Tipped with gold at the ends from the sun, and just that was enough to make Geralt feel even dizzier, that along with the wet, red, well-kissed look of Jaskier’s lips. The bard tugged on his hair, made a needy, insistent noise, a low deep groan, and dragged Geralt’s head back down to his mouth, biting lightly again at his bottom lip as if in gentle punishment for pulling away in the first place, curling his fingers further into his hair, fingertips massaging against his scalp, nails scratching gently, as he sucked and licked his way back into Geralt’s mouth. Geralt would have thought that Jaskier would be wanting some attention lower down than his mouth at this point, but he seemed more than content to kiss Geralt.

And what a kiss. This time, it was clearly Jaskier kissing _him_ , and it was as if Geralt had never been kissed in his life before that moment. That was what it felt like. Jaskier’s hand slid down out of his hair, settled at his jaw, turned Geralt’s head how he wanted him, lips soft over Geralt’s but somehow searing, turning Geralt’s mouth to sunlit fire that blazed through his whole body from that point where their lips touched, where Jaskier sucked at his bottom lip, licked along his teeth as if learning the shape of them, into his mouth, over his tongue, then returned to press his lips softly over Geralt’s own. Geralt felt himself soften and melt under the searing, gentle touch of Jaskier’s mouth, the way he kissed him, with a slow, soft, insistent passion that set him entirely alight, making soft noises of eager want, of desire, as he explored Geralt’s mouth with an ardent, enthusiastic curiosity that left Geralt trembling and weak against it. It was all he could do to hold himself up, to return the kiss, as Jaskier explored his mouth like he was intent on learning it for himself, tongue teasing and gentle before he went back to just gently working his lips over Geralt’s. His hand slid down a little more, curling his fingers under Geralt’s chin, pressing his thumb firmly against his jaw, taking hold of him, his other hand pressed deep into his hair above the braid he himself had put into it. Geralt felt himself—held, embraced, _wanted_ , held close from the soft grasp of the braid gentle against his skull to Jaskier’s grip on his jaw to his tongue on his and the warm pressure of Jaskier’s form against his own, the way he was even now linking his ankle around Geralt’s, skimming it up over his thigh until he groaned, shuddered out a breath into Jaskier’s wet, wanting mouth as he gasped out unsteady breaths onto Geralt’s tongue. When Geralt slid his hand up further into Jaskier’s hair, he _whined_ , pressing his whole body up against Geralt’s, tugging at his hair, pressing their lips even closer together, licking into his mouth wet and hungry. The smell of him, hot and aroused, was all around Geralt, dizzying, heady, his cock hard and hot and wanting, insistent, caught between them so that with every movement it pressed into Geralt’s stomach, his hip. He caught Jaskier’s head in his hand, cradled the back of it, and returned the kiss as best he knew how.

Eventually, what felt like minutes, an eternity later, Jaskier started to pull back from the kiss, to press soft, wet kisses along the side of Geralt’s mouth, along his stubbled chin, up over his nose, until Geralt realized he was trembling. Geralt could smell the hot heady musk of Jaskier’s desire, feel that Jaskier had begun making a wet spot in his breeches, pressed tight into the angle of Geralt’s hip, and caught his head in his hands, both of them, nuzzled his face down along the line of Jaskier’s jaw, pressing his lips to Jaskier’s skin in hot, clumsy kisses, only to still when he got to Jaskier’s pulse in his throat and linger there for long moments, pressing his face to it so he could breathe in his scent, feel and hear his heartbeat right there, loud in his ears and against his lips.

Jaskier gave a stuttering breath, a soft unsteady little gasp. His fingers curled almost convulsively in against Geralt’s hair, and he lifted his hips, gave a twisting roll of them against Geralt’s in a way that immediately had his breath coming hot and hard. He pressed his hips back down against Jaskier’s, pinning him easily against the bed again with the weight of his body, and Jaskier moaned, tilted his head back, willingly, easily, showing Geralt the fine line of his unguarded throat. Geralt bit his lip against a moan of his own at that, the simple, unthinking trust in that movement that knocked Jaskier’s head back into the pillow, spread his hair in loose sweaty tangles over the linen, bared his throat for the wolf, and pressed a soft kiss to his pulse to show him what he thought of that. Since Jaskier didn’t seem to mind his kisses.

Indeed, the bard gasped at that, squeezed his eyes closed, a thick, choked little sound that sounded overcome. “Oh,” he said, a soft little gasp of the word, and bit his bottom lip.

Geralt dared to slide one hand up, over his lip, detaching it from Jaskier’s teeth, and press his lips to the place Jaskier had just bitten. Jaskier quivered under him like one of his lute’s strings, and his hands slid to Geralt’s shoulders, careful where he was bandaged even as they pressed in tight.

“Oh, Geralt,” Jaskier sighed, and it was full of a breathless, sighing want, an ache Geralt thought he might just recognize in himself. He pressed another, soft, kiss to Jaskier’s swollen, wet, well-kissed mouth, lingering over his lips just for a moment to feel the softness of his breath, and pulled back just a bit.

“Does that cover it, famous poet,” he said, finding himself smiling despite himself.

“ _Oh_ ,” Jaskier sighed again, and his eyes only slowly fluttered back open. He looked up at Geralt as if dazed, and slowly a soft smile started to tease at his wet, red lips. “Mmm,” he said, and shifted under Geralt in a way that made him catch his breath. “Not quite, famous witcher.”

“What more do you want,” Geralt breathed, still too caught up in the spell cast over him by Jaskier’s eyes and his body under his and his mouth, his kisses and his scent, to pay any head to the little flutter of anxiety in his belly, the creeping tendrils of it down over his spine, trying to make him afraid. He was still smiling, despite himself.

“Mmm,” Jaskier said, and he smiled more, himself. He pressed one hand, palm a little damp with sweat, against the side of Geralt’s face, his cheek and jaw. Geralt felt himself shuddering under the touch, even as Jaskier’s lashes fluttered and he licked his bottom lip. “I . . . I did ask you a question,” he said breathily, hoarse. “And you . . . you haven’t precisely given me an answer, witcher.”

Geralt smiled again at that, leaned in until his lips were barely touching Jaskier’s, not quite a kiss, not quite not a kiss, and felt a warming thrill when Jaskier shivered all over again but didn’t pull away, not in the slightest. Instead, he leaned toward Geralt until his wet lips were brushing Geralt’s own. Geralt felt his smile widen at that, at the very thought that Jaskier wanted him, wanted to be closer to him, wanted more kisses, perhaps. “What do you think?” Geralt asked, after a moment of lingering, breathing in Jaskier’s scent.

Jaskier gave a huffing little breath of a laugh, not pulling away. His nose was brushing Geralt’s. He slid his hand up, back up into Geralt’s hair, against the back of his neck. “I think that I want to hear you say it,” he said, eyes still heavy-lidded, peering up at Geralt, barely half-open, his smile crooked and soft on his mouth.

Geralt grasped Jaskier’s face between his own hands, careful of the bandage on his palm, but it was nearly healed anyway. He smoothed his thumb over the line of Jaskier’s cheekbone, once, twice, then took a breath, leaned forward until their foreheads were touching. “I want you,” he said, and it came out of the very depths of his chest, of his body, of his gut, a low, rasping growl that was nearly a groan. It felt like a confession of everything that had built up within him for the last few days, for years, wrenching and freeing at the same time. He closed his eyes, let his head rest more firmly against Jaskier’s, breathing in heavily, deeply, the scent of him.

His thumbs rested on Jaskier’s jaw, and he could feel the shuddering gasp he dragged in, the shiver that went through the other man’s body and the way he arched under him, bucked up against him with a tight, low moan, deep from his chest, the way his desire spiked, could smell the fucking precome on him. It was—it was . . . gratifying, to feel him react that way, the heat that shot through him, the way his hand faltered and slipped down his neck, only to grasp even harder, the other curling tight in his hair as Jaskier panted, groaned and leaned in until their lips nearly touched, heads knocking together gently, noses and jaws bumping then sliding away again. His breath felt hot on Geralt’s lips and on his skin.

“Well, isn’t that convenient for us both,” Jaskier whispered, and Geralt could feel his smile against his own lips. “Considering how I want you, too. Awfully. Terribly. Agonizingly.” A softer smile, and Jaskier’s hand smoothing gently along his jaw, up along his hairline. His voice deepened in its whisper, growing hoarse. “Wonderfully.”

“Shut up,” Geralt whispered, still smiling.

“Careful, now,” Jaskier said. “Say that too much with us like this and I’ll begin associating it with your, your big muscles and your giant cock and your enormous, gorgeous body all over me. I’ll get hard every time you tell me to shut up, and since you do that constantly—”

Geralt kissed him again, pressed his mouth to his, felt his gasp and shudder and the gentle opening of his already open mouth as he gave way beneath him, welcomed him in again. Jaskier gave another one of those delicious low moans of pleasure and kissed him back, eager but still somehow soft. When Geralt pulled away again, he finally opened his eyes, feeling breathless, dizzy, like he’d lost track of the bed beneath them somehow and was now just floating in the air, and Jaskier was panting, eyes open but pleasure-dazed.

“Oh,” he gasped, and Geralt smiled, reached up to brush more tangled hair off his forehead. “Don’t, don’t think that is a foolproof way to shut me up. It’s not some magic key, I—I’m not shut up so easily.”

Geralt smiled at that, almost laughed. “I know,” he said.

Jaskier smiled in return, and his hand slipped down until the heel of his palm slid over Geralt’s mouth, then he traced his finger over his lips. “You’re smiling,” he said, wonderingly. “Look at you.”

Geralt couldn’t help it, he didn’t want to, but he flinched, and then hissed out a breath of pain as it brought the aches of his body back to life, forced the smile away from his face. He knew he looked hideous when he smiled, like a wolf baring its teeth, a caricature of a person. He didn’t want to put Jaskier off, not now.

“No, no, no,” Jaskier said, and caught Geralt’s face in both his hands. His face looked very earnest, though he was still smiling a little. “Don’t you dare. I like your smiles. Treasure them. Collect them, if I’m honest. Why did you stop?”

“It’s ugly,” Geralt mumbled. The simple reality.

Jaskier took in an offended-sounding breath of air. “It is not,” he said, in his most highly affronted tone, one of deep insult. “It most certainly is not. If anyone told you that they are a blackguard and a fool of the highest order, without eyes in their head. You have a lovely smile.”

Geralt laughed, a little, had to. It was sweet of him to say so, but he knew the truth. “I do not,” he said.

Jaskier’s eyes sparkled again at the laugh. “Do so,” he said, then just stroked Geralt’s face, gently, with his fingertips, until Geralt ducked his head, made self-conscious and painfully aware by the softness. “Listen, my dear witcher, which of us spends more time looking at your face, you or me? Just accept that I know what I’m talking about. Um, this time, at least.”

Geralt wasn’t sure how he’d gotten so lucky that Jaskier wasn’t put off by his ugliness, his mutations, his inhumanity, that he didn’t mind it, that he could somehow see past all of that, or whatever it was that made him not shy away, that made him not put off, but he wasn’t going to look it in the teeth. Jaskier didn’t mind. He’d be happy for that much and not worry over more. “All right,” he said, and leaned in again to press his face against Jaskier’s hand, to nuzzle at his neck and jaw and breathe in the scent of him again.

Jaskier gasped, arched back again, lifting his head and tilting it for Geralt at his neck. “You are—that was almost frighteningly agreeable,” he said.

“You want me to listen to you or not,” Geralt said, this time hiding his smile against Jaskier’s jaw. He knew the bard could still feel it on his skin.

“Oh, yes, definitely yes,” Jaskier said breathlessly, lifting one hand and sinking it into Geralt’s hair, as if holding him there, just a suggestion of a touch, “but—but you never have done before, so easily, just like that, so—was it just that I needed to bring you off, is that the secret, or—”

“Hmm,” Geralt said, and bit lightly at Jaskier’s earlobe. “Don’t get used to it.”

Jaskier shuddered all over under him. “Oh, no, I wouldn’t dream of it,” he said breathlessly. His head was still tilted back, his eyes lidded and heavy, lips parted, wet and red from kisses, stung hot and full with blood, hair a desperate tousle, eyes open and shadowed with want, blown wide. Geralt thought he could just look at him like that for hours and hours, and probably get off again just from that. He knew his own eyes were blown wide just from how clearly he could see Jaskier, how bright the dim room had gone around them. He braced both his hands on the bed, against Jaskier’s jaw, his neck, traced a thumb over his working throat, then couldn’t resist putting his lips to it again. Jaskier gasped, hard, his chest heaving. He felt very warm, even to Geralt. He knocked his head up, pressed another kiss to the underside of Jaskier’s jaw.

“See that you don’t,” he told him, and it came out an even lower rasp. Jaskier moaned, his eyes fluttering, sighed as Geralt let his lips graze along his jaw. It was heady, dizzying, intoxicating, to have him react like that, to such a bare, trifling touch as that. To Geralt’s mouth, like that. “You haven’t come yet,” he whispered into his skin.

“I, oh, no, I—I haven’t,” Jaskier said breathlessly. “That’s. That’s true, certainly.” The heel of his bare foot was rubbing a nervous groove into the bed, and Geralt reached down with his injured hand to press his wrist against his knee and still it, rubbed his thumb against the side of it. Jaskier sucked in his breath, and his eyes slid closed again.

“What would you like?” Geralt asked. “I’d like to,” _please you_ , “bring you off.”

“Oh,” Jaskier said, again sounding like he’d been struck. His eyes squeezed tight, then flew open again. They again looked very wide and dark as he stared up into Geralt’s, biting his already bitten lip. “I,” he sucked in a noisy breath. “It won’t take much,” he said.

Geralt knew that much. “I know,” he said. “I can smell it on you.”

“Oh, Goddess,” Jaskier said wildly. The scent of lust on him, of precome, spiked. Geralt smiled and nuzzled into his neck. He’d remember that. He dragged his face down, over the open neck of Jaskier’s shirt, put his mouth on the soft hair covering his chest, pushed his face over until he could feel the quick beat of his heart under his mouth. Jaskier made a whimpering noise.

“But you were so good to me,” Geralt admitted. “I’d like to make it good for you, too.”

Jaskier moaned, arched up against him, head falling back again, as he panted, his hand gripping hard at the back of Geralt’s neck as if he needed the anchor. “Oh, Geralt, goodness,” he said, voice a panting wreck, “you can say that any time you like.”

Geralt felt his brow knit, a bit confused. “That you’re good to me?” he said.

Jaskier whimpered, bit his bottom lip. “Geralt,” he said, sounding strangled. “Oh, if—if you want to bring me off, that will do the trick.”

“Hmm,” Geralt said, wrongfooted. That hadn’t exactly been what he’d been thinking of doing. “I’d like to do a little more.”

“Of course you would,” Jaskier said, sounding wry and breathless and overcome.

Geralt wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but he dared to hope it was something good rather than the alternative. At least the implication was that he’d want to repay Jaskier properly, make him feel good. Because he did. “Here,” Geralt said, and pushed himself up, back off of Jaskier a bit. The way Jaskier bit his lip and whined as his weight left him was . . . it was nice. It went straight to Geralt’s cock. “What would you like?” he asked and curled his better hand around the slim line of Jaskier’s hip, stroking the bone of it with his thumb.

“I,” Jaskier said, and swallowed, throat working, the apple of it bobbing. “I, Geralt, I. Don’t strain yourself, I mean, you’re still recovering, I don’t want you to—oh, please don’t—on my account, I don’t—”

Geralt found himself smiling and shaking his head, hoping that Jaskier truly didn’t mind his smiles. “Not a strain,” he said. “Should be quick enough; you just said so yourself.”

“Oh,” Jaskier said, a strangled little gasp, and quivered under him, eyes going wide and flush deepening, biting his bottom lip. “Geralt, that’s—that’s not—not very chivalrous of you to point out, I must say—”

“Never claimed to be a knight,” Geralt said, and Jaskier’s brows drew together in a scowl Geralt found all too charming. He heard himself laugh, felt it bubble up out of him and almost surprised himself, leaned in to kiss him again. Jaskier moaned, and Geralt found himself getting lost all over again in the soft heat and welcome of his mouth, the softness of his skin, the tiniest brush of stubble just starting to grow in, the way he smelled, the way he kissed. It took a long moment for him to pull away, aching as he did, and he couldn’t help sucking softly on Jaskier’s bottom lip, sliding his tongue over it, biting at it gently. Jaskier threw both his arms around his shoulders and seemed determined to just hold on, as Geralt kissed, nipping softly, down his throat, nosing at his chest hair. He reached down and around, unlaced Jaskier’s breeches at the back where they fastened, enjoying the way he whimpered under him as he let himself run his palm firm over the roundness of his arse, then, that done, brought his hand down and back around. He found the placket to Jaskier’s breeches and began to undo the laces one-handed, holding Jaskier at his thigh with his other arm and licking at his chest as he did. His skin tasted warm, sweat-salty and a little sweet. The bard whimpered prettily and his fingers dug in tight to Geralt’s neck, nails sharp points of welcome pain. Geralt couldn’t resist running his tongue over his collarbone, trying to coax more of those noises out of him. If he always made sounds like _that_ in bed, Geralt could understand how many of his lovers seemed to find him irresistible. He already wanted more, and more, and more of them. Of him. Shit.

Instead of letting himself dwell on that, Geralt set his teeth against Jaskier’s shoulder while he got his trousers loosened and open, pulled his shirt up, pushing it up over his hips and his belly. It was almost unreal, running his hard, scarred, callused palm and fingertips up over Jaskier’s stomach and his chest, beneath his shirt, thinking that he was really and truly touching him like this, feeling the quivering muscle of his belly, the heaves of his chest. He’d seen him naked plenty, touched him often, but never like this. He felt lithe and slender under Geralt’s bulk, slim but more leanly muscled than someone who looked just at his bright doublets and lace cuffs might expect. Geralt slid his hand up, over the soft skin of his belly, nowhere near as hard and muscled as his own, enjoying just the feel of him, then reached down and slid his hand down into the open placket of his breeches.

His hand immediately found hard, damp, wanting heat, the sleek silky hardness of Jaskier’s eager prick fairly jumping into his hand as soon as he touched him, his fingertips curling against the bare, soft skin of inner thighs. He had, he could admit, expected drawers, some sort of linen, and he chuckled against Jaskier’s throat, pressed another kiss there. “No smallclothes?” he muttered against his jaw.

“Mmmph,” Jaskier said, breathlessly, whining, a high sweet noise of strained desire as he pushed up into Geralt’s hand. Geralt could feel the heat that washed over the other man, smell him breaking out in sweat, as he tossed his head against the pillow. “I. I hardly. I hardly knew you were going to be, to be, oh, Goddess, gods, that’s good, I hardly knew you’d be putting your hand down my trousers by the end of the, oh, _Geralt_.”

“And if you had, you still wouldn’t have put any on,” Geralt muttered. He wondered if Jaskier would come if he just pressed his thumb over the hot, leaking tip of him. The smell of his musk, of his want, his needing, was already so strong in Geralt’s nose, in mouth, all around him, filling the room, the whole world, as far as Geralt was concerned.

Jaskier laughed unevenly, pressing the back of his hand against his mouth as he gulped an unsteady breath in the middle of it. “Well, yes,” he said. “If I had but known, I’d have made this as easy for you as possible—”

Geralt gave into temptation, swept his thumb up and pressed over the slippery wet tip of Jaskier’s cock, enjoying the shudder that went through Jaskier’s entire body, the way he covered his mouth with his hand against a breathless shout, just barely muffling it in time. The way he dissolved into breathless gasping after, moaning and rocking his hips, was incredibly satisfying. He hadn’t come yet, though, which pleased Geralt, too, because it meant he’d have time to do more for him. He shifted his weight, laid his hand on Jaskier’s hip, which made him give a delicious groan, far back in his throat, and look pleadingly up at Geralt. “Here,” Geralt said. “Up.” Jaskier nodded unsteadily and scrambled up, helping Geralt lift him and push him back up against the headboard. He was tall, nearly as tall as Geralt, but he was light, and he’d always been easy to lift.

That done, Geralt tugged his trousers down his pale lovely thighs and closed his hand over one of them. He rubbed back and forth, just enjoying Jaskier’s warmth, enjoyed that he was _touching Jaskier_ , before he leaned in and took a deep breath of him, of his scent, warm and tangy-sweet where it was strongest, in the soft curls between his thighs, against his prick, the place just under his balls. Jaskier whimpered, loudly, and when Geralt looked up at him again, he had the side of his hand shoved in his mouth.

Geralt rubbed his thumb gently, affectionately, down Jaskier’s thigh, looking up at him, and considering, and Jaskier whimpered again, muffled behind his hand. His other hand came down, curled into Geralt’s hair, and the pleasure in that, the gentle grip, sent a hot shiver all the way down Geralt’s spine into his belly. “Don’t scream,” Geralt said, finally, and bent his head to take Jaskier’s cock into his mouth.

The taste of Jaskier immediately filled his mouth, his senses, the strongest yet, and Geralt heard himself groan as if from a long way away. Jaskier didn’t, scream, but it was a near thing, because he gave a wild little breathless gasping yelp and a quivering shudder went through his whole body, down to his feet, his hand clenching tight in Geralt’s hair. Geralt used his injured hand to curl it around one fine ankle and steady him, careful to apply most of the pressure with his thumb and fingers, and used the other hand to spread Jaskier’s thighs wider apart for himself as he closed his eyes, let himself luxuriate just for a moment in the scent of him, the taste, the feel. Jaskier was silky-slick around the head of his cock from precome, sticky-wet down the shaft, rigid and hard and throbbing with flattering, wonderful, hot need, and the weight and the way he felt on Geralt’s tongue slid hot into his belly, directly into his loins, made him grunt and press himself into the bedclothes despite himself.

Jaskier let out a helpless-sounding, shaky, shuddering breath, whimpered again, gasping loudly. “Oh, Geralt,” he said, after a moment. “Oh, Geralt, I—I, yes, please, I—please.”

Geralt would have said something to quiet him, to settle him, if he hadn’t had his mouth full of his cock. As it was, he just hummed around the head of it, which made Jaskier jerk and give a satisfyingly loud gasp, slid his hand up, stroking along his thigh, curling his hand around the base of his cock, and sucked, licked a long, delicious line down the shaft of him, enjoying his taste, the salt-tang and slight bitterness of his need silky-smooth on his lips and tongue, and went back to suck on the head again, unable to keep himself from pushing his hips into the mattress again as he did as the reality of it went straight to his own cock. Jaskier trembled, hand yanking in Geralt’s hair, and his head fell back against the headboard with a thunk, and when Geralt cast his eyes up at him, he was gasping for breath, the long lovely line of his pale throat working, shirt askew, one arm flung out and hand gripping the headboard as if for support.

Good, then, Geralt thought. He didn’t expect this to take much time, which was probably for the best, much as he wished he could linger over Jaskier’s smell, his taste. It had been a long time since he’d had a cock in his mouth, and he wasn’t quite certain in his debilitated state how deeply he could take him. But he was certain he could make this good, and enough to take Jaskier over the edge he was clearly already teetering on. He cupped his balls with his hand, rolled the heel of it against them in a slow, gentle movement, then slid his fingers back and down. It was a bit of a risk—he didn’t precisely know how Jaskier felt about another man in his arse—but he had seen him once, in the bath, pleasuring himself with one hand behind him, fingers clearly inside himself (before he’d shut the door and taken himself off, down to the stables and a dark, dark corner to bring himself off roughly, one hand stripping his cock as if nearly in punishment for his thoughts, his fantasies) and so Geralt pressed on the spot just behind his balls before he slid one back, slick enough with sweat that he didn’t hesitate to press it in against Jaskier’s hole, as he took him down into his mouth as far as he dared and sucked again.

He’d had a half-formed bet with himself as to whether Jaskier would scream when he came. With his lung capacity and ability to project, if he really let loose it would probably have woken the whole inn, and they’d have an irate innkeep banging on their door in another few moments. In fact, Jaskier didn’t scream, but it was a near thing. He gave a loud, moaning yelp, muffled and breathy, and when Geralt cast his eyes up he saw that he’d clapped his hand over his mouth again, as the taste of him, hot and thick, filled up Geralt’s mouth and his entire body clenched down against Geralt’s finger, the tip of it barely inside him, his hand tugging in Geralt’s hair. The pull made Geralt’s cock jerk. Jaskier’s eyes were wide open and glassy with pleasure, his head knocked back, and he was beautiful, so much so that Geralt thought he could look at him forever, just like this, with the taste of his spend in his mouth. He didn’t want to stop, pressed his tongue against the underside of Jaskier’s cockhead, sucked on him, prolonging his climax and the taste of his seed across his tongue, swallowing it with pleasure.

He kept it up for as long as he reasonably could, until Jaskier was whimpering and his ankle was shaking under Geralt’s touch, writhing against the bed, his softening cock clearly hot and sensitive and nearing pain. Geralt pulled off with some regret, nuzzled his face in against his groin and let himself breathe in his scent once, twice, three times more, taking great lungfuls of it, pressed his face into his thigh and panted, stroking his hand down over Jaskier’s thigh, bare skin and fabric, cupped it around his knee. Jaskier was trembling all over.

Jaskier gave a long, low, soft sigh, and his hand relaxed in Geralt’s hair, stroking gently over the top of it, fingertips gentle and caressing over his scalp. His legs muscles relaxed, legs slumping against the bed, and Geralt nuzzled in closer, left a kiss against the loose muscle of Jaskier’s thigh, feeling how shaky he still was under him, stroking over his knee with one hand and bringing his other arm up to rest against his thigh on the other side. “Oh,” Jaskier gasped. “Oh. Geralt. I. Oh, wow. That’s. Goodness.” When Geralt cast his eyes up at him, he had his wrist pressed to his forehead, hand curled softly, half-open, and he was panting, still deliciously flushed and starry all over with sweat. His chest was heaving.

“Hmm,” Geralt grunted, enjoying how he could still taste Jaskier on his breath, on his tongue. “Good?”

“Oh, yes, I, Geralt, _yes_ ,” Jaskier said, an incoherent babble of words, smiling in a way that seemed light and sated and as dizzy as Geralt felt. “ _So_ good. So good. So good to me.”

Geralt smiled, feeling warm all over at the praise, down over his chest and buttocks and thighs, down into the core of him. His skin tingled. He grunted and pressed his cheek to Jaskier’s thigh again, where he still felt flushed and hot, pushed Jaskier’s loose trousers down past his knee just so he could press a kiss to the bare skin there. Jaskier shuddered all over under him, again, going hot so that Geralt could feel the flush over his skin under his lips.

“Oh, Geralt,” Jaskier said again, a musical, sighing breath. “That was—that was _wonderful_. Goddess, you were so good to me.”

 _Wonderful_ , Geralt thought. He was pleased by it, incredibly, perfectly, that he had made Jaskier feel as good as that. Everything felt perfect in that moment, just that moment. Jaskier’s hand was still in his hair, stroking gently over the crown of his head, which felt almost like too much, too much goodness—Jaskier’s scent, musky and intimate, in his nose, his taste on his tongue, his voice sighing with pleasure, and his hand stroking gently through Geralt’s hair. He found himself shuddering and swallowing against a groan. He was—floaty, dazed, almost, brain slowed and fuzzed by everything, warmth and the heat of Jaskier around him in the air, so that he found himself taken by surprise when Jaskier’s hand came down and pressed firmly on his shoulder, pressing at Geralt until he rolled back onto his side, and then Jaskier slid back down into the bed next to him, put one hand, damp with sweat, at his jaw, wrapped the other around the back of his neck, and kissed him. His hand was damp and gently firm at the back of his neck, his mouth warm and wet and eager on Geralt’s as he swept his tongue over his bottom lip, into Geralt’s mouth, laved it over his tongue once, twice, three times. Tasting himself, Geralt thought, and groaned louder than he’d meant to, bringing his arm up to grip tightly at Jaskier, at his arm and shoulder, gripping tightly at his shirt, his back, gasping into the kiss, pressing closer, deepening it only to have Jaskier respond in kind. Eventually Jaskier pulled away, but only to kiss him again, this time still wet and dizzying but softer, gentler, plying his tongue over Geralt’s lips but only teasing it deeper once or twice, between gasping breaths.

Geralt wasn’t sure what was going on, what Jaskier was about, why he had kissed him now that they were done, but he didn’t want to argue with it, or to pull away from the kiss. It felt too good. He didn’t move away, just gripped tightly at Jaskier’s shirt, holding him close, even as Jaskier moved away, warm breath feathering softly over his cheek and jaw as he kissed down the side of Geralt’s mouth, his chin, down his jaw and throat. Geralt heard himself make a strangled, growling noise, not quite sure what to do with himself, and Jaskier stilled, then when Geralt didn’t move but to chew on the inside of his own cheek, he went back to it, pressing kisses to the arch of Geralt’s throat, along the artery down his neck, over his pulse.

“Oh, Geralt,” Jaskier said, his voice so warm and ardent that Geralt felt himself go warm all over, and his cock jerked, “the things I’d like to do to you, if you were at your best right now.” He pushed his hands back into Geralt’s hair at the same time he slid his thigh between both of Geralt’s, bare skin against bare skin, pressed it up against his cock. Geralt’s breath caught in his throat, and he moaned as Jaskier sucked softly at the hollow of his throat, feeling vulnerable, caught and captured and undone. Jaskier was tugging at his hair now. He slid his hands down, found the tie of the braid and picked it loose, partly with his teeth when it proved recalcitrant, leaning over Geralt’s shoulder. Geralt watched through dazed, heavy-lidded, dilated eyes, a little wet with the light, as Jaskier knotted the leather around his own wrist and then went back to kissing Geralt’s jaw, pulling his hair loose from the braid so that it came falling forward over his hands and wrists. “I’ll do it up again for you after,” Jaskier said in a rush against Geralt’s neck, his hands gripping and massaging in Geralt’s hair, against his scalp. “I just wanted to—to feel, to see, I’ve thought—you have no idea how much I’ve pictured—your hair, Geralt, say that you’ll let me—”

“Hmm,” Geralt managed. His throat felt thick and scratchy. “Of—of course.”

“Oh, thank you,” Jaskier said fervently. He pushed his face upward, into the fall of Geralt’s hair, pulling it forward over his shoulders with both hands, took a long breath. “You have no idea what it does to me.”

Apparently he didn’t, Geralt thought, hazily. He felt dazed, still. Jaskier was trailing his mouth along his jaw, down his neck. He’d never even dared dream of this, of Jaskier kissing his skin, every inch of it, over his throat and his jawline, lips warm and soft, trailing fire wherever they went, his hands tugging in his hair, gripping at the back of his neck. He grunted, turned his head so that Jaskier could lay his mouth hot against the vulnerable place at the hinge of his jaw, feeling himself shudder all over.

“You’re hard again,” Jaskier observed, breathless in his ear. “That is quite something, quite the talent, if I might say so, my dear witcher.”

“Hmm,” Geralt grunted, self-conscious. “It happens. Doesn’t mean you have to—have to—”

“Oh, but I’d love to,” Jaskier purred. “You’ll let me, won’t you? Please?” He pulled back, enough to look into Geralt’s eyes, braced his fingers on his jaw and tilted his head up. “What would you like, my sweet? How would you like it?”

Geralt swallowed. “Er,” he said. He couldn’t come up with a single thing to say; his brain felt thick and soft and warm and slow. Jaskier had just—had he really? Had he really called him that? He could feel his heart beating loud in his ears. He felt hot and dizzy. He wasn’t used to be called endearments of any sort in bed, not really. Not like _that_.

“Your eyes,” Jaskier breathed. “They’re so wide and dark.” His fingertips ghosted over Geralt’s cheek.

“Mmm,” Geralt agreed. He didn’t know how to explain that it happened when he was—when he saw something that desperately interested him, as well as a response to the light. “It’s dim in here,” was all he said, instead, swallowing hard again.

“So you can see me clear as day right now, is that it?” Jaskier asked, still with that breathless huskiness in his voice, licking his bottom lip.

“Mmm,” Geralt agreed. He dared to raise his hand, cup it against Jaskier’s face, hoping that running his thumb over his cheek conveyed what he couldn’t figure out how to say aloud in the way he wished he could. _And I like what I see. And you’re beautiful. Sun-bright and dazzling even in the dark._ But that was—that was far too much. He leaned forward, let his head touch against Jaskier’s again, took in a deep, unsteady breath.

“No direction for me, eh?” Jaskier asked, tugging gently on his hair again. His hand smoothed out along Geralt’s neck, a caress over his jaw, cupping his face, back into his hair.

“Mmm,” Geralt agreed, pressing his face into Jaskier’s neck and taking a deep breath, of him, and sweat, and sex, the remnants of the scent he applied and the smell of lavender in his hair. He was gratified when Jaskier’s hand fisted in his hair, rubbed at the back of his head. He rubbed his cheek against Jaskier’s neck and shoulder.

“But you would like something?” Jaskier asked. He was petting the back of Geralt’s head now, and Geralt pressed closer.

“If,” he said, and his voice was so low and rough that he had to clear it. “If you’d like.” He hoped that sounded noncommittal enough, not too needy or desperate.

“You sweet thing,” Jaskier said, sounding soft and fond. His voice was so warm. “Yes, I’d like to please you again. Here.” He pushed gently at Geralt, until he realized that he was trying to roll him over and cooperated, rolling onto his other side and looking back at him uncertainly to make certain that was what Jaskier had wanted. It must have been, because he smiled at him with warm pleasure and approval, leaned in over his shoulder and caught his face in his hand to kiss him again. Geralt sighed, let himself close his eyes and melt into the kiss, just pleased that Jaskier had wanted to kiss him again. He did it so well, each time, that Geralt could feel himself starting to tremble under it again, even though this time it was much shorter than Jaskier’s other kisses, and then he was settling back behind him, wrapping one arm around his hip and pressing his soft lips, damp and swollen from kissing, to Geralt’s bare shoulder. “How’s this?” Jaskier asked. “Are you comfortable?”

“Yeah,” Geralt said. He was, very. The bed was soft, and Jaskier was being careful of the wounds on his side and back, and his arm was warm around him.

“Oh, good,” Jaskier said, and pressed his lips in another soft kiss to his shoulder, above his bandages. “That’s good.” He was stroking Geralt’s hip now, his thigh, his belly, and Geralt hissed out a breath. “By all rights,” he said, “for fairness’ sake, I should really return the favor you showed me. Goddess knows I’ve been fantasizing about getting my mouth on that big, glorious prick of yours for long enough. I would, but then I was thinking it would be more comfortable with you on your back, and that it’s awfully draining, isn’t it? Overwhelming. Wonderfully so, but . . . well, I hope you don’t mind my hand again. If you do, just say the word, all right? And know that it is deeply, ardently meant, I couldn’t possibly have more admiration for—”

Geralt swallowed, felt his face going hot. “Of course it’s all right, Jask,” he muttered.

“And like this you could just fall asleep, after,” Jaskier rambled, then said, “Oh, right. It’s all right? Okay, it’s all right. That’s good. That’s good. That’s so good, Geralt. Thank you so much for letting me do this.”

Geralt felt his face burning. “It’s you I should thank,” he managed, gruffly, into his pillow.

“Mmm, well, feel free,” Jaskier said, patting his hip gently, “but really, Geralt, thank you.” He pressed another kiss to Geralt’s shoulder, pushing himself up behind him, another in his hair, over his ear. Geralt shuddered. “I know it’s not easy for you,” he said.

“What?” Geralt asked, lost, feeling like he was drowning in warmth and Jaskier’s smell and the warm affectionate wash of words.

“Letting someone lie at your back,” Jaskier said, and slid his hand up into Geralt’s hair again, tugged gently. Geralt sucked in a breath, let his eyes slide closed, knew his cock had jerked and Jaskier had most likely seen it, and felt exposed, but this time it felt warm and oddly wonderful. “Like this.” He slid his hand under Geralt’s hair, stroked at the back of his neck with a finger, then traced it down his spine and out over his shoulder. Geralt shivered again.

He didn’t know how to say that it was different with Jaskier, of course it was different with Jaskier. It was, it felt, safe. He trusted him. In a way he trusted few people of any kind, at all, and most of them were his brother witchers. But Jaskier was different even from them, soft like silk and edged like a dagger, where they were all hardness, armored toughness built for hard monsters and a harder world. “’S’all right, with you,” he managed, finally, after a long moment and a drawn-in, shuddering breath. It ached in his chest, the words thick and clumsy in his mouth. He wished he knew how to say how he adored Jaskier’s arms around him, how warm and—and wanted they made him feel.

“Oh,” Jaskier sucked in a breath, pressed his face into the back of Geralt’s shoulder. He could feel him trembling. “That. That. That might be the most wonderful compliment you’ve ever given me, Geralt. Oh. I—I—I have tried, I try, I—”

“Hmm,” Geralt said. He reached back, clumsy as he was with his injuries, and found Jaskier’s hair under his fingers, cupped the back of his head where his forehead pressed into his shoulder, and rubbed gently, tousling his hair. _It’s true_ , he wanted the motion to say. He cupped the back of Jaskier’s neck, tugged lightly on a lock of his hair. “Jaskier,” he said.

Jaskier pressed his forehead tighter against the back of his neck and panted for breath, reached up and stroked Geralt’s hair back, pressing it back behind his ear, stretched up and pressed a kiss against his neck, just under his ear, behind it, above it.

“Mmm,” Geralt said. That was good. He let his eyes flutter closed.

“You do trust me at your back, don’t you?” Jaskier breathed, still stroking his hair with one hand. He reached up, took Geralt’s hand in his, and squeezed it, running his thumb over the back of it. “You’re so relaxed.”

“Hmm,” Geralt agreed. He gripped Jaskier’s hand back, squeezed back gently. Jaskier shuddered against his back, slid a little tighter in against him, still being careful of his bandaged wounds, slung one leg over his calf, bringing their clasped hands down to rest against Geralt’s chest, then rubbing his palm gently over his stomach, down his abdomen, over the planes of his hips. He was kissing the back of Geralt’s neck, again and again, burying his face in his hair and breathing in long, deep, shaky breaths as he smoothed his hand over Geralt’s front, caressing, down his thighs, gently skirting the bandage over one of them. On another night, Geralt might have wanted to rush him—his prick was throbbing, aching for the touch of Jaskier’s hand, for _anything_ —but as it was he felt strangely content, floating and soft under Jaskier’s gentle touches, to just lie here. Lie here and let Jaskier touch him, as he didn’t think he’d ever been touched before. Not quite like this, with a lover who he trusted and knew, with his _friend_ , who gently lingered over every spot that made Geralt shudder and shake, tracing his fingers over it in a gentle tease, kissing his neck and behind his ear all the while until the skin there felt damp and hot and sticky-wet, smeared with Jaskier’s saliva. Geralt felt the warm glow of it all through him, the idea that he was messy from Jaskier’s spit, still tasting his spend in his mouth and when he breathed. It was as if Jaskier had marked him, with his scent, with his taste, and Geralt hoped he’d wake the next morning still smelling of Jaskier, smelling Jaskier all over him. He tilted his head back, let it rest against Jaskier’s, kept his eyes closed.

“Oh,” Jaskier gasped, a little in-drawn breath of air, and then he was pressing a kiss to Geralt’s cheek, another to his cheekbone. “You’re so lovely,” he whispered into Geralt’s skin, and Geralt wondered if he _was_ drunk, or if his mind was just so hazed with pleasure he found even Geralt beautiful, as he slid his hand down over the muscles of Geralt’s abdomen, over his pelvis. It was a nice thought, at least, he thought distractedly, that he’d pleased Jaskier so intently it had muddled his brains that much, before Jaskier’s hand closed around the tip of his cock and he jerked, gasping mindlessly, all at once lost in pleasure. “Beautiful,” Jaskier mumbled against the corner of Geralt’s lips. “Goddess, this gorgeous cock of yours. I’m still not over how big you are, Geralt. I may never be over it. Here you go; does that feel good? I’ve got you, dearheart, that’s it, thrust up against my hand. You’re so good, you’re gorgeous, so gorgeous, spectacular, gods, the arch of your back, it could bring a man to tears.”

Geralt whined, back in his throat, shook his head, a protest against being called such sweet things, against such praise, not sure whether to turn away from Jaskier and hide his head in the pillow or bury his face against the bard’s neck, or something else entirely. He realized he was biting his bottom lip, a nervous tell he thought he’d defeated when he was just a boy. Jaskier’s hand was sliding up and down his cock, teasing pleasure and friction out of him, but not quite enough to bring him off, bringing him up slowly. When he gasped for air, tossed his head, not knowing what he wanted, what he was looking for, Jaskier’s other arm came around him, clasped his hand, twining their fingers together, and squeezed. It was—it did feel steadying. Geralt took a long shaking breath, squeezed Jaskier’s fingers back. Jaskier kissed his shoulder, pulled his hand away, and brought it down to caress his prick along with the other.

The last time it had been quick, so quick Geralt felt like he’d barely known what was happening before he’d been knocked flat by the blinding pleasure Jaskier had coaxed out of him. This time it was different. It was slow, and gentle, and Jaskier was clearly taking care—taking care that the pleasure not build in him too quickly, taking care to keep it slow and steady, to keep Geralt teetering on the edge of climax but not tipping over. If he had been feeling more himself, Geralt might have growled a protest, pushed at him, climbed on top of him and rutted himself to completion, but now he just let his head tip back against Jaskier’s shoulder and panted for breath, let his hips tilt and jerk up into Jaskier’s hands, and the bard do as he willed with him.

It was—good. Jaskier felt like he knew just what he was doing, just how to handle him, his callused palms rubbing perfectly down over his length, twisting around the head. He murmured in Geralt’s ear the whole time, encouragement, _that’s it_ , and _feeling good?_ and _oh, you liked that, didn’t you_ , and _your arse is so lovely, did you know?_ and _goddess, you have such a beautiful cock_ , and _look at you, so gorgeous, just letting yourself feel it, that’s so good, that’s perfect, look at you feeling so good, hmm_? Geralt kept feeling his face heat, but then Jaskier would kiss at his ear or his neck or his shoulder and do something incredible with his hands and he’d lose the embarrassment, or feel as if maybe it was all right after all. It seemed to go on for an age, years, hours, though Geralt knew there was no way in hell he’d have ever lasted that long, no matter how careful Jaskier was being. But the flickering firelight, the smell of Jaskier, of sex, his arms around him, seemed to create another world, one that he was lost in as surely as a siren’s song sang sailors to death.

Sure enough, as soon as Geralt started to feel as if he couldn’t last another second, started to pant and grunt with the pain of pleasure denied, prolonged, spun out into crystallization, Jaskier sped up his hands, began pressing kisses to the back of his neck again. Geralt gave a gasping little whimpering noise despite his best efforts to keep it back as Jaskier’s teeth gently grazed the back of his neck, and his other hand dropped to tug at his balls, massaging them as his hand slid firmly up Geralt’s cock and wrapped over the head in a graceful, twisting motion, Jaskier’s leg sliding more firmly between Geralt’s, curling around his calf and pulling him in closer, back against him. His climax seemed to build naturally, inevitably, slowly, a gentle push up to the height, and then it was upon him, and Geralt was gasping, a low wrenching noise torn from his chest, and Jaskier curled his arm tighter around him, pressed his elbow in against his hip, rocked up to kiss his neck, the underside of his jaw, and there was nothing but him, and pleasure. Geralt found himself looking up at him, twisting his head back, meeting his eyes, and Jaskier was smiling down at him, and that image seared itself into his brain as he came, and came, and came, and somehow he got his hand up, curled it against Jaskier’s cheek, and Jaskier smiled even widely, softly, fondly, and dipped his head down, pressed a kiss into Geralt’s palm. Everything fuzzed out, went bright and beautiful for a moment, nothing but light, but that was still all he was seeing as the pleasure washed into him like a wave and out again like the tide.

He came back to himself on his side, just as he had been, blinking his eyes open in a pleasure-fuzzy daze. Everything seemed far away, and good, and nothing hurt at all. Geralt felt lazy, and quiet, and very sleepy. He blinked, hid a yawn in his shoulder, and realized that Jaskier was still at his back, arms loosely about him, elbow pressed against his hip. Jaskier’s hands were both in front of him, covered in an . . . impressive amount of spend. Had he really come that much? The other man was moving back, pulling his hands away, and Geralt unthinkingly put out his own hand, curled it around Jaskier’s wrist, and squeezed.

“Geralt?” Jaskier sounded uncertain. “Are you there, sweetness?”

“Mmm,” Geralt said. He brought Jaskier’s hand up to his mouth, dragged his tongue over his fingers, where they were slippery under his lips from his own come.

“Goddess,” Jaskier breathed, sounding as if he’d just been gut-punched. “Am I dead? Bewitched?” His fingers twitched under Geralt’s lips, and Geralt just hummed again, closed his lips around one of them and sucked, flicking his tongue against the callus on Jaskier’s finger. His fingers were long, slender, clever, and Geralt had always wanted to press his lips to them. Jaskier moaned, and his forehead thudded into the back of Geralt’s neck.

Geralt smiled, hazily, and licked his way down to Jaskier’s palm, up his next finger. He liked the taste of himself, all over Jaskier’s hands. He liked the way Jaskier shuddered, whined into the back of his neck, at the touch of his mouth to them.

“You have such lovely hands,” he mumbled, licking down Jaskier’s fingers, along his palm.

“Compliments, Geralt, really,” Jaskier said, but he sounded delighted, warm and bright, so Geralt smiled and pressed his face closer into his palm, dedicating his tongue and lips to their task. “They are, after all, my trade,” Jaskier said. “Oof, that tickles. You lovely thing, you, that is the—the absolute hottest thing I’ve ever seen or felt in my life, if I were, well, I don’t know, five years younger, I would be ready for a second round about now just from that—”

Geralt chuckled, pressed kisses and passes of his tongue over his knuckles. “Lovely boy,” he said, “you don’t know the first thing about age. What are you, five and twenty?”

“Honestly, Geralt,” Jaskier said huffily. “I am _eight_ and twenty, excuse me. You’d think you, of all people, would know.”

Geralt shrugged. “Close enough,” he said. It was hard to track age, when you lived as long as he had. People came and then they went. Or, if they were Jaskier, so far, they clung on like barnacles. He licked the last of the spend on Jaskier’s hand and reached for the next, squeezing gently and then releasing the one he held with a rub of his thumb over the skin left sticky from his mouth, his spend, him . . . self. Jaskier moaned into the back of his neck again, and Geralt shuddered pleasantly, already licking come off his fingers on the other hand. He nuzzled in close against his palm, enjoyed the ostentatious noises of pleasure Jaskier made as he finished up, then left a kiss on his skin there, at the heel of it. “You see yourself as a lutenist, more than a singer?” he asked, letting his eyes slip closed again, already feeling sleepy. He kept Jaskier’s hand in his, rubbing his thumb against his palm. It felt good to touch him. Felt good to feel his warmth, his skin, to slip his hand down and curl it around his wrist, to feel his pulse.

“Eh?” Jaskier asked.

“Mmm,” Geralt said. “You said before. Your hands are your trade. But you don’t need them to sing.”

“Ah, well,” Jaskier said. “Yes. Bards are often called upon to play instrumental music. Dancing music. Other sorts. Entertainment for a lady’s solar. At the back of a political salon. A soiree. At a tavern. A bard is nothing without his instrument, you know. Though I’m quite a fine singer, if I do say so myself.”

“Mmm,” Geralt agreed.

“Did you like me singing you to sleep the other night?” Jaskier asked, leaning in again and sliding his hand up along Geralt’s belly, speaking softly into his ear. “I could do that again, if you’d like.”

“Won’t last long,” Geralt muttered.

“Hmm?” Jaskier asked. He was draped over Geralt now, drawing shapes on his abdomen with his fingers, but he was still being careful not to press on his wounds, or put any weight on them at all. Geralt was grateful for the consideration.

“Half asleep already,” he grunted.

“Ah, well, that’s no matter,” Jaskier said lightly. He brushed a kiss against Geralt’s ear, then sung, gently, very soft, “Go to sleep, go to sleep, close your lovely eyes,” to the tune of an old lullaby Geralt had heard mothers and grandmothers singing in the villages he passed through. “Close them, Geralt,” he said, a moment later, in his normal voice, though still in little more than a whisper, and Geralt, startled by the order, obeyed, though never had he imagined his eyes being called _lovely_ , even just for the sake of an old lullaby. “If you close your golden eyes, you’ll cuddle up to me,” Jaskier sang, softly, in his ear. “Go to sleep, go to sleep, you little falcon, when you grow, we’ll go to the fields.” He was stroking Geralt’s stomach now, up and down over his ribs, avoiding his bandages. “Rock and rock, in your linden cradle, oh, darling boy, let this song put you to sleep . . . .”

That was the last lyric Geralt remembered, it was those words and the warm puff of Jaskier’s breath on his ear, because he was asleep in the next moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Jaskier is singing is based on a Polish lullaby I found in a linguistics paper when I googled Polish lullabies, from the Lublin area.


End file.
